T ZEE IE 
NATURALISTS’ QUARTERLY, 
A MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF 
NATURAL HISTORY IN ALL ITS BRANCHES. 
ffS?, A4.1 April, 1880 . 
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, 
50 Cts. PER YEAR. 
THE LARGEST MOUND IN THE UNITED STATES. 
By F. W. Putnam, 
Curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology , Cambridge. 
In company with several gentlemen from St. Louis and with 
Dr. Patrick of Bellville, I had the good fortune, in September, 
1878, to visit the great Cahokia Mound, the largest tumulus 
within the limits of the United States. This immense work of 
the Southwestern Moundbuilders is near Cahokia creek in Illinois, 
on the “Great American Bottom,” and nearly opposite St. Louis. 
Situated in the midst of a group of about sixty oth^r mounds, 
of more than ordinary size, several in the vicinity being from 30 
to 60 feet in height, and of various forms, Cahokia Mound, rising 
by four platforms, or terraces, to a height of about one hundred 
feet, and covering an area of over twelve acres, holds a relation 
to the other tumuli of the Mississippi Valley similar to that of 
the Great Pyramid of Egypt to the other monuments of the 
Valle}?- of the Nile. 
Although this mound has been described or alluded to by many 
writers, there exists considerable confusion in regard to its name, 
NAT. QUART. 4 (17) 
