The well-watered region which stretches westward from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, was occupied until recently by a comparatively dense Indian population; and even now affords shelter to the remnants of native tribes. But besides the traces of their ephemeral dwellings and graves, it abounds with earthworks of a distinctive character, peculiar to the New World. But of this as of other partially explored regions of the west, the earlier accounts were vague and contradictory; and it is only very recently that the characteristics of its monuments have been accurately defined. Mr. J. A. Lapham, to whose _Antiquities of Wisconsin surveyed and described_, the minute knowledge of these remarkable earthworks is chiefly due, claims to have first described the Turtle Mound at Waukesha and other animal effigies of the same territory, so early as 1836. These notices, however, only appeared in local newspapers; and general attention was for the first time directed to them by Mr. R. C. Taylor in the _American Journal of Arts and Sciences_, in 1838. Their peculiar character was thereby perceived, and such general interest awakened, that the American Antiquarian Society was induced to place funds at Mr. Lapham’s disposal for carrying out the elaborate surveys since published. The occurrence of “Animal Mounds” is by no means exclusively confined to the State of Wisconsin. Some examples are specially worthy of notice among the varied earthworks of the Ohio and Scioto Valleys. But the important fact connected with the aboriginal traces of Wisconsin is that its Animal Mounds do not occur interspersed, as in the Ohio Valley, with civic and sacred enclosures, sepulchral mounds, and works of defence; but within its well-defined limits, thousands of gigantic basso-relievos of men, beasts, birds, and reptiles, all wrought with persevering labour on the surface of the soil, constitute its distinguishing characteristic; and disclose no evidence of their construction with any other object in view than that of perpetuating their external forms. The vast levels or slightly undulating surfaces of prairie land present peculiarly favourable conditions for the colossal relievos of the native artist: yet not more so than are to be met with in other localities where no such mounds occur. It is important therefore to bear in remembrance that defensive or military structures, and such as are apparently designed for sacrificial rites or religious ceremonies, are scarcely to be met with in the territory marked by those singular groups of imitative earthworks. The country, moreover, is well adapted for maintaining a large population, in very diverse stages of social progress. Through its gently undulating surface numerous rivers and streams flow in sluggish, yet limpid current, eastward and westward, to empty themselves into Lake Michigan or the Mississippi. The pools and groups of lakes into which they expand, furnish abundance of wild rice,