The character and dimensions of the remaining mounds are sufficiently indicated in the plan. There is however another singular structure connected with the group, which deserves special notice. It consists of a terrace extending due west from the principal mound above described, parallel to the «bayou». It is elevated three feet above the general level of the plain, and is seventy-five feet wide by two thousand seven hundred feet in length. Upon either side of this terrace, and parallel to it, are broad excavations, at present about three feet deep. These excavations are not far from two thousand feet long, by from one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet wide. There are no other perceptible excavations in the vicinity; and it is reasonable to conclude that most, if not all of the material for the construction of the works was taken from these points.
The ground occupied by these remains is for the most part under cultivation. It was originally covered with a heavy growth of the black walnut, a species of timber scarcely known on the alluvial lands of the Mississippi, so far south. It was first cleared by a Mr. Harper, in 1827. Broken pottery is found in abundance around these monuments; and fragments of human bones, much decomposed, are observed intermixed with the earth. Upon the mounds, in many places, the earth is much burned. There are no other remains of magnitude in the immediate vicinity.
The works here represented, Fig. 22, are situated in Bolivar county, Mississippi, near Williams’s «bayou» in the Choctaw bend, one mile and a half from the Mississippi river. They consist of two truncated pyramidal structures of the character already described, accompanied by two small conical mounds, the whole surrounded by a circular embankment of earth, without a ditch, two thousand three hundred feet in circumference, and four feet high. A gateway opens into the enclosure from the east. Mound A is one hundred and fifty feet square at the base, seventy-five feet square on top, and twenty feet high, with a graded ascent from the east. B is one hundred and thirty-five feet square at base, fifty feet at top, and fifteen feet high. The ascent in this instance is from the north. The two small conical mounds are about thirty feet in diameter, and five feet high. The sides of the pyramidal structures do not vary two degrees from the cardinal points [p117] of the compass; a feature not observed in any of the others above noticed. They all, however, appear to have been placed with some reference to these points,—probably as near as they could be located without instruments.