which is at once a means of sustenance to numerous aquatic birds, and also constituted an important source of supply to the aborigines, so long as they held possession of the territory. The rivers and lakes also abound with excellent fish; and where the soil remains uninvaded by the ploughshare of the intruding settler, numerous traces of older agricultural labour show where the Indians cultivated the maize, and developed some of the industrial arts of a settled people. Indian grave-mounds diversify the surface, and enclose ornaments and weapons of the rude nomads that still linger on the outskirts of that western state. But such slight and inartificial mounds are readily distinguishable from the remarkable structures of a remoter era which constitute the archæological characteristic of the region. Here, indeed, as elsewhere, the Indians have habitually selected the ancient earthworks as places of sepulture; and as a rule have given the preference to the larger and more conspicuous mounds. On some of these the surveyors recognised recent graves of the Potowattomies. But their irregular position shows that they bear no relation to the original design. In their superficial character they correspond to the slight grave-mounds made with the imperfect implements of the modern Indians; and they contrast in all other respects with the laborious construction of the gigantic animal-mounds. The symbolic earthworks of the Wisconsin plains are not confined to the representation of animals, though the predominance of animal-mounds has suggested that name for the whole. Embankments occur in the form of crosses, crescents, angles, and straight lines; and also seemingly as gigantic representations of the war-club, tobacco-pipe, and other familiar implements or weapons. Some of the crosses and other simpler forms probably originally represented animals, birds, or fishes, with extended wings or fins. But in those, as in the better-defined animal-mounds, time has obliterated the minuter touches of the ancient modeller, and effaced indications of his meaning. Yet fancy still recognises among the best preserved relievos the elk, buffalo, bear, fox, otter, and racoon. The lizard is of frequent occurrence; the turtle and frog also appear; birds and fishes are repeatedly represented; and man himself figures among the ancient relievos. Of one form of mound which Mr. Lapham identifies as the otter, seven examples occur. Sixteen cruciform earthworks are described, and the ordinary examples, of all sizes, are counted by hundreds.