Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/237

pose of die mounds. Because so many of die mounds had been worn away in die course of a long period, it is impossible to know with precision how many there were. But there are thirty or more along the Calapooia River between Brownsville and Albany, and many others have been found throughout the length and breadth of Western Oregon. The mounds were probably of considerable height when first erected. But through the centuries and possible millenniums since they were cast up, storms and other action of the elements have reduced them until they are only four to ten feet in height, and from 50 to 150 feet in diameter. Near some of the mounds there are to be seen depressions or trenches from which earth was removed in building the mounds. One of these depressions is so deep that water is confined vfithin it nearly all the year. On the southern edge of the mounds, skeletons of human beings have been exhumed—some in a sitting posture, others b^ing on the side. Together vrath the skeletons were mortars, beautiiully carved, some of which were of Brazilian type; also