Mound-Builders by William J. Smyth
page 14 of 21 (66%)
page 14 of 21 (66%)
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this and other evidences lately collected, we may assume that the
serpent was among the sacred animals. Between the jaws of this serpent there is a stone mound, bearing marks of long use as an altar. The body, which is a mere winding wall, is, on an average, five feet in height, and thirty-feet broad at the base near the centre. Doubtless this wall was much higher when first made, and owing to the rains of centuries it has become lower and broader. Another mound, the shape and proportion of an alligator, may be seen in Licking county, Ohio, about one mile from Granville. This is also on a spur of land near the Licking River. Its length is 250 feet and height about four feet. Its whole outline is strictly conformable to the alligator with which animal they must have been familiar along the Mississippi, where they could easily journey by boat. Rather than transport the animal from the south, they doubtless erected this representation of what they must have held sacred. In the State of Wisconsin there is one symbolic mound more worthy of notice than any other. It is called "the Elephant Mound," from the fact that it bears the proportion and conformability of the Mastodon. This people must have known something of this animal which in early times roamed over this continent. I think we should not be going too far if we supposed that the Mound-builders lived contemporaneously with the last of these monsters of the Prehistoric forests. _Signal Mounds_.--It seems quite in keeping with what we have already seen of the sagacity of this wonderful race, that they should erect stations of observation in various suitable regions, so that signals could be given to the multitudes who dwelt in the plain, when they were threatened by an approaching enemy. If a fire were lit on a much |
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