The thunder, which the Dakotas believe to be a winged monster, and which in character seems to answer very well to the Mars of the ancient heathen, bore down upon the Iowa village in a most terrible and god-like manner. Tempests howled, the forked lightnings flashed, and the thunders uttered their voices; the earth trembled; a thunderbolt was hurled at the devoted village, which ploughed the earth, and formed that deep ravine near the present dwelling of Peter Quinn. This occurrence unnerved the Iowas, and the Dakotas, taking advantage of it, fell upon their enemies and drove them across the Minnesota river and burned up their village. The Iowas then built another village on the south side of the river near the present planting grounds of Grey Iron, where they remained till the Dakotas obtained firearms, when they fought their last battle with them in Minnesota, on Pilot Knob, back of Mendota. The Iowas who escaped on this occasion fled and erected their next village at the mouth of the Iowa river, from which they were again eventually driven by the Dakotas towards the Missouri. The old man from whom we gather the substance of what has gone before says that these mounds are the remains of the dwelling houses of the ancient Iowas. Some say that they are not the remains of the dwellings of the Iowas, but those of some other people with whom tradition does not acquaint them; and others still say that they are ancient burial places. The following two or three facts may not be without interest to the reader. Some six years since, Mr. Quinn of Oak Grove removed the earth of one of these mounds at the same place where Black Tomahawk says the ancient Iowa village stood. As the earth was removed on a level with the natural surrounding surface, charred poles and human bones were found. It was easy and natural for the imagination to supply the rest, and make the fact corroborate the tradition of the old man, when he says that the Iowas constructed their houses by leaning poles together at the top and spreading them at the foot, forming a circular frame, which they covered with earth. In one of these houses a man or woman had been killed, and the timbers of the house fired, which, of course, would let the earth fall in upon the dead body and burning poles. Dr. Williamson, on page 10 to 12, of the Minnesota Historical Collections of 1856, says: