186 
VIEWS OF LOUISIANA, 
The mounds at Grave creek and Marietta have been mi¬ 
nutely described, but in point of magnitude they fail tar short 
of others which 7 ! bare seen. 
To form a more correct idea of these, it will be necessary 
to give the reader some view of the tract of country in which 
they are situated. The American bottom , is a tract of rich allu¬ 
vion land, extending on the Mississippi, from the Kaskaskia to 
the Gahokia river, about eighty miles m length, and five in 
breadth; several handsome streams meander through it; the 
soil Of the richest kind, and but little subject to the effects of the 
-Mississippi floods. A number of lakes are interspersed through 
It, with high and fine banks; these abound in fish, and in the au¬ 
tumn are visited by millions of wild fowl. There is. perhaps, 
no spot in the western country, capable of being more highly 
cultivated, or of giving support to a more numerous population 
than this valley. If any vestige of ancient population were to 
be found, this would be the place to search for it—according¬ 
ly, this tract, as also the bank of the river on the western side,* 
exhibits proofs of an immense population. If the city of Phila¬ 
delphia and its environs, were desenecl, there would not be 
more numerous traces of human existence. The great number 
of mounds, and the astonishing quantity of human bones, every 
where dug up, or found on the surface of the ground, with a 
thousand other appearances, announce that this valley was at one 
period, filled with habitations and villages. The whole face 
of the bluff, or hill which bounds it to the east, appears to have 
been a continued burial ground. 
But the most remarkable appearances, are two groupes of 
mounds or pyramids, the one about ten miles above. Gahokia, 
the other nearly the same distance below it, which in all, exceed 
one hundred and fifty, of various sizes. The western side, also, 
contains a considerable number. 
A more minute description of those above Gahokia, . which I 
visited in the fall of 1811, will give a tolerable idea of them all. 
* The Saline, below St. Genevieve, cleared out some time ago, and 
deepened, was found to contain wagon loads of earthen ware, some 
fragments bespeaking vessels as large as a barrel, and proving that the 
^alines had been worked before they were known to the whites. 
