36 ANTIQUITIES OF WISCONSIN. 



covered with trees, shrubs, and herbage, as are also the other grounds in the 

 vicinity. 



Fort Atkinson is the name of a flourishing village on Eock river, a little below 

 the mouth of Bark river. In this vicinity are several groups of mounds, usually 

 in irregular rows, three or four at a place. Some very large burial tumuli, half a 

 mile below the town, on the right bank of the river, have been opened by citizens 

 of the place. One, the largest, is ten feet high and sixty feet in diameter, composed 

 in part of gravel, taken doubtless from the bed of the river, but mixed with the 

 black earth of the surface. 



Graves of Indians were passed in penetrating this ; and at the bottom was a 

 cavity lined with clay, hardened apparently by water, with an impression, as was 

 supposed, of the rough exterior surface of oak bark, as if a log of this wood had been 

 buried, now entirely decayed and gone ; or, perhaps, it was a skeleton enveloped , 

 in bark for interment. It will be remarked that, in opening mounds and pene- 

 trating to the original deposits, but few. implements or ornaments of any kind are 

 found. In this respect, the Wisconsin mound-builders differed from their succes- 

 sors, who are in the habit of burying articles of supposed value and utility with 

 their dead ; and from this fact it may perhaps be inferred that they had less mate- 

 rial notions of the spirit world, or at least of the necessities of those who were on 

 the journey to that happy land. 



Half a mile below the group of circular mounds last referred to, is the remark- 

 able succession of works represented on Plate XXVIII, No. 1. The excavation 

 has been before alluded to. (See pages 15 and 18.) In its general character it is 

 precisely like those near Milwaukee, and the one on the school section at Pewaukee. 

 (See ]3age 31.) In shape it very much resembles some of the figures that have 

 been denominated lizards. (See Plate IX, Fig. 7.) 



Are we, then, to consider this as of the same origin, formed in the inverse order, 

 and for similar purposes as the mounds ? As at Milwaukee, a large mound stands 

 near the smaller extremity. 



These works are situated on the immediate bank of the river, which here has an 

 elevation of ten or fifteen feet. The irregular cross at the west end of the group is 

 quite peculiar, as are also the elongated and tapering mounds at the opposite ex- 

 tremity, which, in shape, may be compared to the tear drop ! One cross near the 

 fence is exactly like those of Waukesha and Crawfordsville. (Plates XVII and 

 XXII.) The road runs directly over several of these mounds, and they will soon 

 be destroyed and forgotten. Then, the present record only can be referred to as 

 evidence of their former existence, and of their nature and extent. 



A mile west of Jefferson, the county town of the county of the same name, situ- 

 ated at the junction of the two principal branches of Eock river, are the works 

 represented on Plate XXVIII, No. 2. There we find the first lizard-mounds 

 observed on Eock river. They have the same form and relative proportions as 

 those before described, but differ in direction, their heads being a little north of 

 west ; all those before observed having had a direction towards points of the com- 

 pass lying south of east or west. Another circumstance which probably governed 

 their direction is, that they have their heads towards the water or low grounds, 



