isconsin, even implements,
as well as animals, are symbolized. The beaver, the tortoise, the
elephant, the serpent, the alligator seem to be their favorite
animals, whose images they have endeavored to perpetuate in mounds, of
course on a large scale. In Adams county, Ohio, on a steep bluff, 150
feet above the level of Brush Creek, may be seen a huge serpent.

It is called the "Serpent Mound." The head of the serpent lies towards
the point of the spur, and then like the serpent, its body winds
gracefully back for 700 feet, the tail curved into a triple coil. From
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
burnt mound at the ancient fort near Bournville, it could be seen over
a large portion of