none more than 18 inches high or 25 feet
across. They are on the general level, some of them on a gentle slope,
of the first upland above the St. Francois River and a mile from that
stream at its nearest point.

Half a mile to the south of these is a group of similar mounds on the
farm of Isaac Hopkins, on a gently sloping hillside, and from 30 to 40
feet above the level of the overflow bottom land. One of these has
been gradually worn away by the encroachment of a gully until more
than half of it has disappeared. While the curvature of its surface is
very apparent, and the remnant of its margin sufficiently distinct to
show its regularity of outline, careful inspection of the face formed
by the erosion fails to reveal any trace of stratification, or line of
demarcation between the bottom of the mound and the original surface.
There is precisely the same uniformity of change from the grass roots
to the underlying gravelly soil that exists in the exposed bank at any
point to either side of the mound. Mr. Hopkins, desirous of knowing
what might be in the mound, or why it was built, has noted the
appearance of the earth from the time the gully reached its margin. At
no time has its appearance differed in the least from what it presents
now.

On the river bottom portion of Mr. Hopkins's farm, and on the
adjoining Goings and Townshend farms to the southward, are many mounds
lying along both sides of the Belmont division of the Iron Mountain
Railway. Fully 100 were observed within a distance of a mile; and they
are said to continue both up and down the river. They are all above
flood stage, except in time of extreme high water. They range from a
foot to 3 feet high, and from 20 to 40 feet across; but some of them
have been lowered and broadened by cultivation. They are of the same
earth as the ground around them. Mr. Hopkins says crops are much
better on the mounds than on the area between them. This is no doubt
due to the greater amount of productive soil in the one case, and to
the excess of moisture in the other; the railway embankment impeding
drainage in the lower part. Oak trees 4 feet in diameter grew on the
mounds before they were cleared off.

Two of these mounds were completely removed, down into the subsoil.
The first was 18 inches high and 35 by 40 feet across; the variation
in breadth resulting from continual cultivation in one direction. It
contained nothing whatever of artificial character, not even a scrap