riginal position. The same objection
applies to this as to the wind-blown theory, namely, that we can not
imagine water acting with such mathematical regularity and intelligent
discrimination, especially upon slopes which lie at all sorts of
angles with the trend of the current.

Persons who recognize their human origin have suggested that they were
erected as stands for hunters, from which they could detect game at a
greater distance, or could take better aim as the animal passed; or
perhaps as camping places while waiting; but in many places more than
half the area of the ground over several acres is occupied by such
piles of earth, promiscuously distributed. This implies more hunters
than animals.

For a long time it was supposed that they were burial mounds, like so
many such structures found over the country; but this idea has been
dispelled by the failure to discover in them any evidences of such
purpose; no human bones nor any of the artificial objects commonly
placed with the dead have ever been found in them unless under such
conditions as to show their presence was accidental.

Two very plausible theories have found general acceptance: That they
were the sites of dwellings, placed on them to be out of the mud in
wet weather; and that they were in the nature of garden beds, thus
elevated for growing any food products which needed a comparatively
dry soil, or might be injured by temporary accumulation of water from
excessive rainfall.

But they were not "residence mounds" or "house sites" in the sense
that they furnished a base or foundation for structures which were
used as dwellings; for there has never been found on their surface or
in the earth immediately around them any of the debris invariably
accompanying Indian huts or houses, such as fireplaces, ash beds,
burned rocks, broken implements, or fragments of bones and pottery.
These considerations also interfere with a full acceptance of the
hypothesis that they are remains of houses built of wood and covered
with earth. It is true that such evidence is very frequently found in
other localities; but to establish the fact that they were residence
sites, refuse of this kind should be found wherever the mounds occur.

J.B. Thoburn arrived at this conclusion from the resemblance of some
of them in their outlines to the grass-covered houses of the Pawnees;
and it is believed that this tribe in its migration from the south
followed approximately the route a