ANTIQUITIES OF FOX RIVER VALLEY, LA SALLE COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
By W. Hector Gale, of Wedron, Ill.
Having recently had the pleasure of examining a portion of the Fox River Valley, about 8 miles from Ottowa, the capital of La Salle County, Illinois, the author gives below the results of his investigations. The valley abounds in picturesque scenery of rocky bluffs and wide, fertile fields. The surface rocks are the Saint Peter's sandstone and Trenton limestone of the Lower Silurian. The drift in many places is 40 feet in thickness, consisting of a bluish clay, very hard, which, when undermined, breaks into blocks with the regularity of stratified rocks.
The Fox River passes along the eastern side of the valley in this locality, and is, in ordinary times, very shallow and rapid. The stream has, in the remote past, covered the entire valley, about one-half a mile in width. The ground is eminently historical as being the region which was explored by those intrepid voyageurs, La Salle, Tonti, Marquette, and Joliet, also the scene of the almost romantic extermination of the Illini Indians by the Iroquois. Within a radius of a few miles, and especially within this immediate locality, were enacted some of the most sanguinary scenes of the Black Hawk War.
But relics of a still older people are unmistakably visible here. It may be well to add that the course of the river here is from north to south. Perpendicular bluffs, of Saint Peter's sandstone, rise along the eastern shore, which are washed by the waters of the Fox, even at low water, while along the western side of the valley are sloping bluffs from 20 to 60 feet above the river. My experience during the late war teaches me that, were an enemy expected from the south, this locality, on account of its natural advantages, would be fortified and made a very strong place. It would seem that this fact was not lost sight of by the prehistoric inhabitants. On the west side of the valley, on a point of the bluff highest above the valley, I find an earthwork commanding the surrounding country, and facing toward the east and south. The bluffs are divided from those south by the Indian Creek, which enters the Fox about one- quarter of a mile distant, coming from the west, and has cut out a valley from that direction. The general shape of the fortification may be seen by an examination of Fig. 1. The large mound at the corner is highest, rising some 5 feet above the natural surface of the ground. Some time since, an excavation was made in the center of the mound, and a few bones found, but they had perished to such a degree that it would be impossible to describe any of its characteristics in an intelligible manner. On either side of the mound referred to is a smaller one, about 2 feet in advance of the main line, giving a passageway, gate, or entrance on either side, yet not leaving space entirely open and unprotected. In the rear of the fort, Fig. 1, is a thick second growth of oak
