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Show 154 E* rfy Western Travels [ Vol 96 which supplies the city with water, raised from the Mississippi by a steam force- pump upon its banks. Both are beautiful spots, imbowered in forest- trees; and the former, from its size and structure, is supposed to have been a citadel or place of defence. [ 126] In excavating the earth of this mound, large quantities of human remains, pottery, half-burned wood, & c, & c., were thrown up; furnishing conclusive evidence, were any requisite farther than regularity of outline and relative position, of the artificial origin of these earth- heaps. About six hundred yards above this group, and linked with it by several inconsiderable mounds, is situated one completely isolated, and larger than any yet described. It is upward of thirty feet in height, about one hundred and fifty feet long, and upon the summit five feet wide. The form is oblong, resembling an immense grave; and a broad terrace or apron, after a descent of a few feet, spreads out itself on the side looking down upon the river. From the extensive view of the surrounding region and of the Mississippi commanded by the site of this mound, as well as its altitude, it is supposed to have been intended as a vidette or watch- tower by its builders. Upon its summit, not many years ago, was buried an Indian chief. He was a member of a deputation from a distant tribe to the agency in St. Louis; but, dying while there, his remains, agreeable to the custom of bis tribe, were deposited on the most commanding spot that could be found. This custom accounts for the circumstance urged against the antiquity and artificial origin of these works, that the relics exhumed are found near the surface, and were deposited by the present race. But the distinction between the remains found near the surface and those in the depths of the soil is too palpable and too [ 127] notorious to require argument. From the Big Mound, as it is called, a cordon of tumuli stretch away to the northwest for several miles along the bluffs |