31 



THE ROBERTS MOUND. 



This Mound, like the Baldwin Mound, is located upon a high hill 

 composed of drift gravels and sand, the materials having been chiefly 

 derived from the limestone strata of our own State. Standing upon 

 its summit a wide and beautiful prospect meets the eye in whatever 

 direction one may turn. On the east the horizon is bounded by a 

 range of hills. These hills are in reality the termination of a broad 

 plateau and they indicate the contour lines of the eroded valley 

 formed during some former geological period, into which valley now 

 flow the streams which furnish the natural drainage of the country. 

 Similar plateaus stretch away to the north and to the south and 

 their numerous upland farms, teeming with abundant harvests, betoken 

 the extraordinary fertility of the soil. One of these elevated plains 

 is styled "Pretty Prairie." This name is applied to the southern part 

 only of the northern plateau, but geologically it extends to the east- 

 ern side of Urbana, the city itself being placed upon a lower terrace, 

 and is the whole tract included between the valley of Madriver and 

 that of its eastern tributary. Buck Creek. But perhaps the most re- 

 markable feature of the landscape is the broad valley itself, which 

 sweeps down between the plains above described from near Mechan- 

 icsburg on the north-east, and taking a course due west as it flows by 

 the base of the hill upon which the mound stands, finally trends away 

 to the south-west, broadening as it goes, and, at last, lost to view in 

 the distant horizon. One cannot fail to be impressed with the idea 

 that this valley once held a noble river, smoothly flowing through 

 its generous channel and hiding from view the present alluvial plain. 

 The only remnant of this river, if such there were, is the little stream 

 called Buck Creek, so named from the manner in which its smaller 

 branches here unite with the main trunk like the antlers of a stag. 

 Standing upon this mound, the prehistoric inhabitant could see the 

 mound on what is now the Baldwin farm, crowning the summit of the 

 opposite bank, and give to his friends across the stream a token of 

 welcome or a signal of approaching danger. These sites, selected 

 as they undoubtedly were with unusual care, as burial places for their 

 dead, betray on the part of this little known people a love of nature 

 and an appreciation of its beautiful features which are to be classed 

 among man's nobler faculties, and which cannot fail to excite in us 

 some tender sentiments mingled with our curiosity to learn something 

 of their lost history. The grave mounds or barrows o*f Great Britain 



