OCR Text |
Show 1836- 1837] Flagg's Far West 189 miles; and other groups of the same character may be seen upon a lower section of the bottom, to say nothing of those within the more immediate vicinity of St. [ 165] Louis. The design of these mounds, as has been before stated, was various, undoubtedly; many were sepulchres, some fortifications, some watch- towers or videttes, and some of the larger class, among which we would place Monk Hill, were probably devoted to the ceremonies of religion. The number of the earth- heaps known as the Cantine Mounds is about fifty, small and great. They lie very irregularly along the southern and eastern bank of Cahokia Creek, occupying an area of some miles in circuit. They are of every form and every size, from the mere molehill, perceptible only by a deeper shade in the herbage, to the gigantic Monk Mound, of which I have already said so much. This vast heap stands about one hundred yards from the creek, and the slope which faces it is very precipitous, and clothed with aged timber. The area of the base is about six hundred yards in circumference, and the perpendicular altitude has been estimated at from ninety to upward of a hundred feet. The form is that of a rectangle, lying north and south; and upon the latter extremity, which commands a view down the bottom, is spread out a broad terrace, or rather a steppe to the main body, about twenty feet lower than the summit, extending the whole length of the side, and is one hundred and fifty feet in breadth. At the left extremity of this terrace winds up the sloping pathway from die prairie to the summit of the mound. Formerly this road sloped up an inclined plane, projecting from the middle of the terrace, ten feet in breadth and twenty in extent, and seemed graded for that purpose at [ 166] the erection of the mound. This declivity yet remains, but now forms part of a corn- field. The view from the southern extremity of the mound, which |