e mounds were built, and it does not
appear that they were ever covered with earth. In the small, low, flat
mounds, under which such holes existed, no thought was taken that
these may mark the position of posts used to support a roof; all
mounds were explored with the idea that they were for burial purposes,
consequently no attention was paid to these features.

The Mandan houses, as described by Lewis and Clark, Catlin, and
others, when fallen into ruins would leave exactly such mounds or hut
rings as those found in Missouri and Arkansas.

It is now generally conceded that the wall or embankment at Aztalan,
Wisconsin, concerning which so many wild theories have been
promulgated, was simply a series of such house sites connected by a
low ridge. The evidences of mysterious sacrificial altars seem to be
due only to the destruction of such houses by fire.

In Wisconsin, also, and in Minnesota, are many small mounds apparently
of this character which are due to an extinct tribe known to the Sioux
and Chippewas as "The Ground House Indians."

In 1887 I became acquainted, at Munising, Michigan, with Mr. William
Cameron. He was of the Scotch clan of Camerons, a nephew of a former
Governor of Canada. Educated for a profession, he made a visit to
relatives in Canada in early manhood, and the attractions of the
wilderness proved so great that he never returned to his home. At the
time I met him he was 84 years of age, in full possession of his
mental faculties. For more than 60 years he had traversed the Lake
region, his fur trading and trapping expeditions having carried him
over all the country from Montreal to the mouth of the Mackenzie
River. Much of his life had been spent among the Indians, especially
the Sioux and Chippewas. He learned from them all they could tell him
of their tribal history and former methods of living. The Chippewas
told him that when they first came into the country they found the
Sioux in possession, but finally, obtaining arms from the French, they
drove the Sioux westward.

The "old men" of the Sioux corroborated this tradition and told
Cameron that as they went westward they came to a race of people who
lived in mounds which they piled up. These people were large and
strong, but cowardly. "If they had been as brave as they were big,"
said the Sioux, "between them and the Chippewas we would have been
destroyed; but they were great cowards and we easily drove them away."

Mr. B.G. Armstrong, o