92 ANTIQUITIES OF WISCONSIISr. 



lessons. Indeed, we are led to believe that the more complicated forms are the most 

 ancient. 



The relative ages of the different works in Wisconsin, so far as they can be 

 ascertained from the facts now before us, are probably about as follows : 



First and oldest. The animal forms, and the great works at Aztalan. 



Second. The conical mounds built for sepulchral purposes, which come down to 

 a very recent period. 



Third. The indications of garden-beds planted in regular geometrical figures or 

 straight lines. 



Fourth. The plantations of the present tribes, who plant without system or 

 regularity. 



Thus the taste for regular forms and arrangements, and the habits of construc- 

 tion with earthy materials, seem to have been gradually lost, until all traces of 

 them disappear in our modern degenerate red men. 



The animal-shaped mounds, and accompanying oblongs and ridges, constituting 

 the first of the above series, are composed of whitish clay, or of the subsoil of 

 the country.^ 



The mounds of the second series, or burial-mounds, are usually composed of 

 black mould or loam, promiscuously intermixed with the lighter-colored subsoil. 



The animal-shaped mounds appear to be peculiar to Wisconsin; 'for the few 

 obscure instances noticed in Ohio, by Messrs. Squier and Davis, can hardly be 

 deemed an exception to this remark. They indicate a difference in the character 

 of the people occupying these regions, but not greater than often exists between 

 the neighboring tribes or nations. 



* It has been observed that the diluvial or drift clays, whether red, yellow, or blue in their original 

 beds, assume a whitish color when exposed to the sun and dried. 



