[19] “Antiquities of Wisconsin,” Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. vii, 1855.
[20] Squier and Davis: Ancient Monuments, pp. 97–99. Recent and possibly more exact surveys of the Alligator give the figures as somewhat less than the above. Isaac Smucker, a very reliable antiquarian of Licking Co., Ohio, in an address before the Ohio State Archæological Convention, held at Mansfield in September, 1875, corrects the figures in the following statement: “The Alligator mound is upon the summit of a hill or spur, which is nearly 200 feet high, six miles west of Newark, and near the village of Granville. The outlines of the Alligator (or Crocodile) are clearly defined. His entire length is 205 feet. The breadth of the body at the widest part, twenty feet, and the length of the body between the fore-legs and hind-legs is fifty feet. The legs are each about twenty feet long. The head, fore-shoulders and rump have an elevation varying from three to six feet, while the remainder of the body averages a foot or two less.”
[21] Lapham’s Antiquities of Wisconsin, pp. 18, 20, 36, 37, 39, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 62, 69.
[22] W. H. Canfield’s Sketches of Sauk County, Wisconsin; Foster’s Pre-Historic Races, p. 101. On the copper remains of the Mound-builders, see Pre-Historic Wisconsin, by Prof. James D. Butler, LL.D., annual address before the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Feb. 18, 1876. Wisconsin Hist. Col., vol. vii. Privately printed.
[23] Smithsonian Report for 1872, figured and described on p. 416 by Jared Warner of Patch Grove, Wis. (Oct. 1872). A further description of mounds in the same locality, by Moses Strong, M. E., will be found in Smithsonian Report for 1876, p. 424.
[24] Antiquities of Wisconsin, pp. 42–5: “The main features of these remains is the enclosure or ridge of earth (not brick, as has been erroneously stated), extending around three sides of an irregular parallelogram; the west branch of Rock River forming the fourth side on the east. The space thus enclosed is seventeen acres and two-thirds. The corners are not rectangular, and the embankment or ridge is not straight. The earth of which the ridge is made was evidently taken from the nearest ground, where there are numerous excavations of very irregular form and depth; precisely such as may be seen along our modern railroad and canal embankments. These excavations are not to be confounded with the hiding-places (caches) of the Indians, being larger and more irregular in outline. Much of the material of the embankment was doubtless taken from the surface without penetrating a sufficient depth to leave a trace at the present time. If we allow for difference of exposure of earth thrown up into a ridge and that lying on the original flat surface, we can perceive no difference between the soil composing the ridge and that found along its sides. Both consist of a light yellowish sandy loam. The ridge forming the enclosure is 631 feet long at the north end, 1419 feet long on the west side, and 700 feet on the south side; making a total length of wall 2750 feet. The ridge or wall is about twenty-two feet wide, and from one foot to five in height.” * * * After describing one of the mounds of this enclosure, he remarks: “The analogy between these elevations and the ‘temple mounds’ of Ohio and the Southern States, will at once strike the reader who has seen the plans and descriptions. They have the same square or regular form, sloping or graded ascent, the terraced or step-like structure, and the same position in the interior of the enclosure. This kind of formation is known to increase in numbers and importance as we proceed to the south and south-west, until they are represented by the great structures of the same general character on the plains of Mexico.”
[25] D. Gunn in Smithsonian Report for 1867.
[26] Dr. Farquharson in Proceedings of Am. Ass. for the Adv. of Science, vol. xxiv, p. 305.
[27] Through the courtesy of Dr. R. J. Farquharson I am enabled to append the original report made by Mr. Gass to the Davenport Academy, Jan. 26, 1877. It is as follows:
“We broke the surface on the north-east slope of the mound about ten or twelve feet from the opening on the west side made in 1874. The earth was frozen to a depth of about three and a half feet. Five or six inches below the surface we came upon a layer of shells one or two inches in thickness, which sloped downward toward the south-east, reaching a depth of two feet or rather more below the surface, and extending for a distance of ten or twelve feet. Between the surface and this first layer of shells a number of small fragments of human bones were found scattered through the soil. Under this shell layer was a stratum of earth of from twelve to fifteen inches in thickness, resting on a second layer of shells, from three to four inches in thickness. Both shell layers sloped downward nearly parallel with each other.
“Below the second shell layer the earth was of the nature of a light mould, darker in color than the earth above and thickly interspersed with fragments of human bones. These circumstances arrested my attention and caused me to proceed from this time on with the greatest caution. At a depth of about fifteen inches under the lowest part of the shell layer exposed in this excavation—the shell stratum at this point being five or six inches thick—the inscribed slates were found. The slate is the same as that usually found overlying coal beds in this vicinity, and is such as is frequently seen cropping out from the hill-sides or in isolated slabs in the beds of streams. Both plates lay close together on the hard undisturbed clay bottom of the mound.
“The engraved side of the smaller tablet was upward, and also that side of the larger one presenting the heavenly bodies, hieroglyphics, etc. The larger plate being partially divided by natural cleavage, its upper layer was unfortunately broken in two by a slight stroke of the spade. The two plates were closely encircled by a single row of weathered limestones. These stones are irregular in shape, but almost of the same size, their dimensions being about three by three by seven or eight inches, and the diameter of the circle about two feet.
“In the immediate vicinity were found a number of fragments of human bones, one being a portion of a skull saturated with carbonate of copper. A small piece of copper was found; also many fragments of slate and a piece of bone artificially wrought.”