January, 1900. Doerflinger and Brown— Effigy Mounds. 
9 
Report on the Teller Effigfy Mounds in Milwaukee County, 
Wisconsin. 
•By C. H. DOERFLINGER and C E. BROWN. 
This interesting group of ancient works was first introduced to 
the notice of the Wisconsni Natural History Society in May, 1899, 
by Mr. Edgar E. Teller, a member, in whose honor the society has 
named them. It owes much of its present importance to the fact 
that Wisconsin's celebrated antiquarian, Dr. Increase A. Lapham, 
did not note and describe them in his immortal work on Wisconsin 
antiquities, although it is well known that he very frequently vis- 
ited the vicinity and described other less extensive groups in the 
near neighborhood. 
Writmg to the society under date of June ist, 1899, his 
daughter, Miss Mary J. Lapham, expresses her great surprise that 
her father should have overlooked such an extensive group of 
emblematic mounds in a locality with which he was so entirely 
familiar, but a most careful research among Dr. Lapham's pub- 
lished works and unpublished notes has thrown no light upon the 
matter under consideration, so that we may safely conclude that 
these ancient works were once so well hidden among the dense 
tmderbrush of the surrounding forest as to escape even the careful 
scrutiny of this great observer. 
Of the many interesting prehistoric effigy and other mounds 
discovered and described by him and other explorers of Milwau- 
kee County, nearly all have long since been effaced by the growth 
of the city and the cultivation of the outlying tracts, so that at the 
present time our group stands almost alone as a monument to the 
customs and works of prehistoric man in Milwaukee County, 
Wisconsin.* 
A proposition to undertake a thorough exploration of this 
group of mounds was received with enthusiasm by the members 
of the Ethnological section. A preliminary excursion having been 
made to the grounds, and a favorable report presented at the 
following meeting, the director of the section was authorized to 
prepare a plan of operations and to engage Mr. F. W. Blodgett, an 
experienced civil engineer, to make an accurate survey of the 
mounds and their position relative to neighboring landmarks, the 
result of which is given here below and illustrated by the three 
accompanying plates. 
* *'It is claimed that within the limits of the city of Milwaukee stood some of 
these mounds even as late as 1855." H. L. Conrad's History of Milwaukee. 
