EARTHWORKS. The most conspicuous toric works of America are mounds and other elevations of earth. such as occur abundantly in the Mississippi Valley; perhaps the best-known examples being Calmkia Mound. near East Saint Louis, and the Etowah Mound in northeastern The mounds range from barely ceptible elevations to two hundred feet in height, from three to four yards to over half a mile in diameter, and from a hundred square feet to several acres in extent; they number tens, if not hundreds, of thousands; and while they are most abundant in the neighborhood of the Mississippi and its tributaries, they occur in every State and Territory of the United States and in every American country and district thus far quately examined. Many, if not most, of the simple mounds are tumuli or burial places; a eonsiderable part of those examined have been found to contain human skeleton-s, sometimes in large numbers, together with a wide variety of artifacts attesting lavish mortuary sacrifices. In some instances structures of wood or stone have been found in the mounds; and in south western United States, Mexico, Yucatan, lion duras. aml some South American countries, many of the mounds are but ruins of habitations, temples, or other structures reduced by weather ing. In some districts the tumuli are associated with embankments, either simple or in circular or rectangular form: and these are sometimes combined and connected with conical or pyra midal mounds in elaborate cyst 'ins. Squier, whose investigations of the aboriginal earthworks of the Ohio Valley are classic, deemed the earth built circles accurate and the squares perfect; and while later surveys have revealed imperfec tions in the engineering. the extent and sym metry of the works milk be regarded as re markable. In some eases the earthworks have been shown, by early observation or otherwise, to be designed as fortifications; but similar evi dence indicates that many of the most remark able works were ceremonial, and connected with elaborate systems of faith and forms of worship. In Wisconsin, Alinnesota. and Iowa, and to some extent elsewhere, many mounds are rudely shaped in animal forms, representing various mammals. birds, and reptiles; these effigy mounds denoted the totems (or zoic tutelaries) of local clans and tribes. One in Wiscorekin, known as
"the Elephant Mound," from its resemblance to the elephantine form, has attracted much atten tion, though it is the prevailing opinion of in vestigators that the resemblance is fortuitous; but perhaps the most remarkable example of its class is "the Serpent Mound" of Summit County, Ohio, described by Putnam, and through his ef forts preserved in a public park. Along most or all of the American coasts shell-mounds, or mid dens, occur, tometimes in great size and profusion. Those of the Maine coast have been examined by many investigators, and have been found to con sist primarily of shells, bones, and other refuse of a shoreland dietary, together with implements, utensils, and ornaments lost in the diffiris from time to time, so that they afford a clear picture of prehistoric life; and similar records have been obtained from the middens of Alaska, British Columbia, California, Greenland, and other parts of the North American coast. The chwhi mounds of Florida yielded a remarkably clear record under the investigations of Wyman; and this record was greatly extended on the western coast of Florida by Cushing, who found the coast wise keys and other small islands raised and strengthened by carefully laid walls of conch and other shells, and who obtained from adjacent muck-beds remarkable series of ut(msils, orna ments, eeremonial objects. etc„ preserved in the Peaty mass in remarkable perfection. The shell mounds of the Louisiana coast also are of great extent, though they have not been fully exam ined; while 1\loore and others have found those of the Alabama coast to throw much light on local characteristics of the aborigines. Perhaps the largest American shell mound i.; that forming Punta Antigualla, opposite Tiburon Island in the Gulf of California ; it is about ninety feet high, and although a large but unknown portion of it has been carried away by •ave-wear, it still covers an area of some seventy-five acres; it is wholly of local shells, chiefly those of the clam, and contains pottery and atone implements pre cisely like those used by the surviving aborigines of the district, from base to summit.