Mound

“ This bluff is nearly 300 feet above the lowlands, and overlooks the country for many miles in every direction. The mound in question was formed of the soil adjacent, and is at the present time about 8 feet in height above the original surface. The base of the mound is elliptical in form, being about 70 feet north and south, and 40 feet east and west. The earth from which this mound was made was apparently taken from a place 125 feet south, where a large depression exists, about 35 feet square, and at present 5 feet deep. ”

“ Some time I shall take up an expression that the queer-shaped mounds upon this earth were built by explorers from Somewhere, unable to get back, designed to attract attention from some other world, and that a vast sword-shaped mound has been discovered upon the moon—Just now we think of lettered things and their two possible significances. ”

“ On a recent visit we climbed the northern mound, which is fairly steep, reaching a height of 528 ft., the only side that one can ascend, being covered with short slippery grass, which renders it somewhat dangerous. ”

“ From beyond the clay-paved section the winds have brought the light, loose particles of soil and have piled them up in crescent-shaped hills at various places about the plain. The hills vary in size but not in shape. Each mound is as true a crescent as is the new moon, or as could be constructed by the most [Pg 206] skillful landscape gardener. ”

“ Eight or ten of us ascend to the top of the mound from whence the shaft or column of clay and sand ascends about 150 feet above the mound, which is about 200 feet high, making 350 feet above the level of the plains, and one of the greatest curiosities I have ever seen in the West, and can be seen distinctly thirty miles on the plains. ”

“ There is a mound in the valley, much like a Tel in the country of Bashan beyond the Jordan, that may have been built by some prehistoric race, and may contain treasure and the seated figure of a preserved chieftain on his slow way to Paradise. ”

“ All around the site of the mound the soil to the depth of 20 inches is composed of the débris of old camps, a mixture of ashes, mussel shells, bones of fishes and wild animals, charcoal, broken pottery,&c.; and here hundreds of implements of stone, bone, and shell have been obtained. The big mound is said, by persons who have often seen it before the hand of vandalism desecrated it, to have been more than 30 feet high by 150 feet in diameter at the base. ”

“ The sloping mound of earth which covers the house, grading off insensibly to the level of the ground, gives the houses the appearance of being underground, especially as the land on which they stand is irregular and hilly. ”

“ One of the most singular characteristics of these mounds is that they seem invariably to be composed of earth brought from a greater or less distance. The surface of the surrounding ground usually comes up to the base of the mound in a smooth level, when it does not already possess a natural elevation; but there is no evidence of the ground anywhere in the neighborhood having been disturbed to furnish the earth for their construction. ”

“ The shoot is always in use, for the efficacy of the mound depends upon the heat generated by actually decaying vegetation. Did the birds think out this simple labour-saving method before deciding on the site for the mound, or was it a gracious afterthought—one of those automatic impulses by which Nature confronts difficulties?
2. As I wandered on the hilltops far from home I was astonished when Tom, the cutest of black boys, dropped on his knees to investigate a crevice between two horizontal slabs of granite filled with dead leaves and loam. ”

“ M. W. DICKESON, some new facts respecting this mound. “On digging into it, vast quantities of human skeletons were found; also numerous specimens of pottery, including vases filled with pigments, ashes, ornaments, etc. The north side of the mound is supported by a wall of sun-dried bricks, two feet thick, filled with grass, rushes, and leaves. A shaft has been sunk in the mound to the depth of forty-two feet, without reaching the original soil.” ”

“ The mound rises higher than the road, and its length shuts off the view at either end, that and the line of the road, which curves away from the lake at the north end, and runs in an almost straight direction for some distance at the other. ”

“ They have nevertheless been often referred to, and are described as consisting of a number of mounds, some rectangular and others round, embraced within a large enclosure of not far from two hundred acres area.80 The principal mound is said to be circular, four hundred feet in diameter at the base, ninety feet in height, truncated, and having a level area at its summit, fifty feet in diameter. The summit is reached by a spiral pathway, which winds with an easy ascent around the mound, from its base to its top. This pathway is sufficiently broad to permit two horsemen to ride abreast. ”

“ The mounds with which the tales of little people are associated have not, in many cases, been habitations, but were natural or sepulchral in their nature. It may, of course, be argued that the story having once arisen in connection with one kind of mound, may, by a process easy to understand, have been transferred to other hillocks similar in appearance, though diverse in nature. ”

“ At the extreme edge of the Plains on the brow of a cliff overlooking Sale Bottom is another mound composed solely of stones; it is twenty-six yards in diameter, and has originally been about seven or eight feet high. ”

“ In common with the enclosures, the mounds are for the most part composed of earth, though stone mounds are by no means rare. They are sometimes composed entirely of clay, while the soil all around them, for a long distance, is gravel or loam. ”

“ Most of these mounds are located near large rivers or streams, and, consequently, in the valleys, although some few are to be found on high lands, and even on hills very suitable for military purposes. Sometimes they may be seen in clusters, indicating a great business centre and large population, while again only one may be found in a journey of fifty or one hundred miles. ”

“ Mounds that look like snow-banks, towering walls that seem shimmering curtains, white glistening slopes down which one might easily fancy oneself tobogganing, so closely do they resemble our Northern hillsides in mid-winter, resound with the cackling voice of the irrepressible guide. ”

“ It does not rise and fall in a few sea-like heavings, or in many little waves, nor is it level or in one long, gradual slope, but rising sleepily from west to east it is broken by sudden hollows and mounds. ”

“ A large majority are simply heaps of the earth nearest at hand. Stone mounds, or those of mixed materials, are rare, and are chiefly confined to the hill-top structures. Most of the earth mounds are homogeneous in structure, but some are regularly and doubtless intentionally stratified. ”

“ Besides the mounds, there are groups of earthworks of a different order of structure, that must be considered by themselves—great embankments, fortifications, and singular structures on hills and plateaus that are in marked contrast to the ordinary conical mounds, and mounds in the form of animals and of man. ”

“ The mounds were almost all confined to fertile valleys or alluvial plains, and some at least are so ancient, that rivers have had time since their construction to encroach on the lower terraces which support them, and again to recede for the distance of nearly a mile, after having undermined and destroyed a part of the works. ”

“ They stayed there long enough to build great mounds, which are still to be seen, grown over with grass and trees. Some of these mounds are very curiously shaped, like serpents, turtles and other animals, which the people superstitiously reverenced as their protectors. ”

“ Commencing at a point near the foot of a long bluff sloping to the south, and 40 rods north of the south line of section 4, and 10 rods east of the west line, are three common round mounds. For convenience we have numbered these, commencing with the most westerly. The distance is reckoned from center to center of round mounds, and from end to end of long mounds. ”

“ All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay —
I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again;
But the good new days are better — I would not be heard to complain;
It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me
Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.
Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid,
Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade,
And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie,
With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky. ”

“ These mounds lack every evidence of artificial construction based on implements or other human vestigia. They are nearly all round, none angular, and have an elevation hemispheroidal of one foot to five feet, and a diameter from thirty feet to one hundred and forty feet. They are numbered by millions. In many places, in pine forests and upon the prairies, they are to be seen nearly tangent to each other as far as the eye can reach, thousands being visible from an elevation of a few feet. ”

“ It may be stated here also that these scattered human bones, the flints and broken pieces of pottery, together with the shells and bones of animals, were all of them above the depth where the skeleton was found, as though they were mixed with the earth of which the mound was built. ”

“ About 300 yards to the north rises the second terrace of the valley, composed of red clay and gravel. Near the foot of it are the remains of a ditch, inclosing this group of mounds in an arc of a circle, at a distance of about 200 yards. The western end rests on the river below the mounds, into which the high waters back up a considerable distance. ”

“ More hills rose from the plain on every side, as simply as if they had been built there by the hand of some gigantic child playing in a wilderness of sand. And the river, coming around the base of the hill on which I was standing, but several miles away, swept out upon a great aqueduct of stone, hundreds of feet high, which crossed the plain through its very center, a straight line of breath-taking beauty, and disappeared far away into the pass between two mountains. ”

“ The domes, ridges, and spurs also show the influence of glacial action in their forms, which approximately seem to be the forms of greatest strength with reference to the stress of oversweeping, past-sweeping, down-grinding ice-streams; survivals of the most resisting masses, or those most favorably situated. How interesting everything is! Every rock, mountain, stream, plant, lake, lawn, forest, garden, bird, beast, insect seems [Pg 241] to call and invite us to come and learn something of its history and relationship. ”

“ For, instead of finding rest at once, like the snow which falls into the tranquil depths of the forests, it is rolled over and over, beaten against rock-ridges, and swirled in pits and hollows, like boulders, pebbles, and sand in the pot-holes of a river, until finally the delicate angles of the crystals are worn off, and the whole mass is reduced to dust. ”

“ To all these Professor Forbes assigns the characteristic regions of depth, nature of favourite ground, and geographical distribution. The most positive and determining influence is that of the ground or sea-bottom. "According as rock, sand, mud, weedy or gravelly ground prevails, so will the numbers of the several genera and species vary. The presence of the sponges of commerce often depends on the rising up of peaks of rock in the deep water near the coast. ”

“ In a dry, hot, monotonous forested plateau, seemingly boundless, you come suddenly and without warning upon the abrupt edge of a gigantic sunken landscape of the wildest, most multitudinous features, and those features, sharp and angular, are made out of flat beds of limestone and sandstone forming a spiry, jagged, gloriously colored mountain range countersunk in a level gray plain. ”

“ A great plain of sand stretches around the Mont for miles every way—of sand or sea, for the water covers it at flood-tides, beating up against the foot of the granite rocks and the granite walls of the ramparts. ”

“ The eye travelled up naturally from the green line of trees to the green slope, and saw that slope as part of a great rounded hill, rather like a bit of the Downs in general appearance; but had it been hollow you could have gone on pouring your Chanctonburies and Sinoduns and Beachy Heads and Hogs backs into it, and they would have rattled about like small-shot inside. The stream of trees let you see how big it was, as hills on the horizon show the greatness of the setting moon. ”

“ In this little valley we see slow changes now in progress. We find also in the composition, the structure, and the attitude of the rocks, and the land forms to which they have been sculptured, the record of a long succession of past changes involving the origin of sand grains and their gathering and deposit upon the bottom of some ancient sea, the cementation of their layers into solid rock, the uplift of the rocks to form a land surface, and, last of all, the carving of a valley in the upland. ”

“ A glass of water taken from the muddy river, to show how the fine particles worn from the stones, settle down on the bottom as a layer of mud. You see the story of land goes around a circle. Mother earth is all the time tearing down and building up. She doesn't mind spending millions of years in grinding a mountain into mud and sand; pressing these into stone, and lifting the rock layers into mountain chains again. ”

“ The higher mountains suffer their summits to be broken into fragments and to be cast down in sheets of massy rock, full, as we shall presently see, of every substance necessary for the nourishment of plants; these fallen fragments are again broken by frost, and ground by torrents into various conditions of sand and clay,—materials which are distributed perpetually by the streams farther and farther from the mountain's base. ”