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nble exception. We must not confound these military mo- 

 numents with the mounds or tumuli containing thousands of 

 skeletons of a stunted race of men scarcely five feet high. 

 These mounds increase in numbers from the north towards 

 the south ; the highest are near Wheeling and Grave-Creek 

 (diam. 300 feet, height, 100 feet) ; near Saint Louis, on 

 Cahokia-Creek (diam. 800 feet, height 100 feet) ; near new 

 Madrid (diam. 350 feet) j near Washington, in the state of 

 Mississipi, and near Harrison town. Mr. Brackenridge 

 thinks there are nearly 3000 tumuli from 20 to 100 feet high, 

 between the mouth of the Ohio, the Illinois, the Missoury, 

 and the Rio San-Francisco ; and that the number of skeletons 

 they contain, indicate how considerable must have been the 

 population heretofore of those countries. These monuments, 

 considered as the places of sepulture of great communes, 

 are most frequently situated at the confluence of rivers, and 

 on the most favorable points for trade. The base of the 

 iumuli is round or of an oval form ; they are generally of a 

 conical form, and sometimes flattened at the summit as if 

 intended to serve for sacrifices, or other ceremonies to be 

 seen by a great mass of people at once. (See my Views of 

 the Cordilleras, p. 35.) Some of these monuments near 

 Point-Creek and Saint Louis, are two or three stories high, 

 and resemble in their form the Mexican teocallis and the 

 pyramids with steps, of Egypt and Western Asia. Some of 

 the tumuli are constructed of earth, and some of stones 

 (Stone-Mounds), [or Cairns] heaped together. Hatchets 

 have been found on them, together with painted pottery, 

 vases, and ornaments of brass, a little iron, silver in plates 

 (near Marietta), and perhaps gold (near Chillicothe). Some 

 of these mounds are only a few feet high, and are placed at 

 the centre, or in the neighbourhood of the circular circum- 

 vallations ; they resemble the cerritos hechos a mano, which 

 in the kingdom of Quito, near Cayambe, are called adorato- 

 rios de los Indios antiguos ; they were either tribunes for ha- 



