all of earth four
feet high and two thousand three hundred feet in circumference, incloses
four mounds, two of which are temple mounds. According to the late
Prof. Forshey, temple mounds abound in Louisiana. He described a group
situated in Catahoola County, in which the principal mound has a base of
more than an acre, a height of forty-two feet, and the upper platform
an area of nearly one-third of an acre. The smaller mounds are arranged
around this larger one. This group is defended by an embankment. From
this point for a distance of twenty miles along the river, are scattered
similar groups of mounds; in all cases the smaller ones arranged around
the larger one, which is presumably the site of a temple.

Illustration of Temple Mounds inclosed in a Circle.------

A digression right here may not be devoid of interest. We are not sure
but that the dim, uncertain light of history falls on the origin of this
group of mounds. When the French first commenced their settlement in
the lower Mississippi Valley, the Natchez Indians was the most powerful
tribe in all that section. In the course of time, wars ensued between
them and the French, and in the year 1730 they fled into Upper
Louisiana, and settled at the place where these mounds are now found.
But the French followed them a year or so afterwards, and nearly
exterminated. them. Some of our scholars think that they erected these
mounds.<37> The historian of that epoch simply says they had "built a
fort there." It is however questioned whether they had time to build
works of such magnitude. But they were both a mound-building and a
mound-using people, and we are not prepared to say how long it would
take them to do the work, until we know the number engaged, methods
employed, and other considerations.<38> If they did not build these
works, they doubtless cleared them of trees and utilized them; and this
place was therefore the scene of the final downfall of the Natchez--a
people we have every reason to regard as intimately connected with the
prehistoric mound-building tribes.

The largest temple mound in the South is near Seltzertown, Mississippi.
Its base covers about six acres, and it rises forty feet. This slope was
ascended by means of a graded way. The summit platform has an extent
of nearly four acres. On this platform three other mounds had been
reared--one at each end, and a third in the center. Recent investigation
by the Bureau of Ethnology have shown that