Notes respecting certain Indian Mounds and Earthworks, in the form of Animal Effigies, chiefly in the Wisconsin Territory, U.S.

              Indian Mounds and Earthivorks. fi®
front of this bluff, and enclosing the mound or effigy, is a long earthwork in an exact straight line, about two hundred yards in length, having an opening in the centre opposite to the animal. The position of this earthwork indicates its having been designed for the purposes of defence or fortification against an enemy; perhaps as an outwork to the strong hold in the rear, formed by the bluff itself. The great Indian road to which we have already referred, skirts along the outer or southern side of this embank¬ ment.
Fig. 4, PI. II. This sketch is drawn from the admeasurement of a couple of animal-shaped mounds, between which passes the same Indian path, at the distance of six miles west of the Four Lakes. These figures are selected to shew that one, if not both of them, represented a different species of animal to those we have traced in the preceding outlines. In one instance only they were depicted with the appendage of a tail; the others were tail¬ less ; and whether in the present case this deviation from the usual configuration resulted from the caprice of the Indian artists, or really depictured some beast more favored by nature than his contemporaries, it is not easy at this period to decide. They are respectively one hundred and twenty and one hundred and two feet long, and perhaps may have been intended to represent foxes.
Fig. 5. Beyond the Wisconsin Territory, on the north side of the river of that name, in the region still held by the Winne- bagos, are innumerable mounds, both of the circular and most of the other forms we have figured. At one position, however, near the river, and not far from English prairie, a group of six of these appear to represent birds, probably the eagle, or perhaps the crane, Avhich was the ancient badge of the chiefs of a branch of the once powerful tribe of Chippewas.* This sketch was communicated to the writer by the person who took the original admeasurements. The scale of these is about the same as the preceding.
PL I, Fig. 2 is a tracing from a sketch drawn to a larger scale, of a bird-shaped mound, in the same region ; which sketch was furnished me by an intelligent individual, but of course I am unable to vouch for its accuracy. Possibly the figures which elsewhere I had noticed as possessing the general form of the
* Col. McKenney's History of the Indian Nations.