Serpent Mound in the Words
       of Frank Ward Putnam


                The graceful curves throughout the whole length of this singular effigy give it a strange, life like appearance; as if a huge serpent, slowly uncoiling itself and creeping silently and stealthily along the crest of the hill, was about to seize the oval within it's extended jaws. Late in the afternoon, when the lights and shades are brought out in strong relief, the effect is indeed strange and weird; and this effect is heightened still more when the full moon lights up the scene and the stillness is broken - by the call of the unseen bird of night. Reclining on one of the huge folds of this gigantic serpent, as the last rays of the sun gleaming from the distant hilltops, cast their long shadows over the valley, I mused on the probabilities of the past; and there seemed to come to me a picture as of a distant time, of a people with strange customs, and with it came a demand for an interpretation of this mystery. The unknown must become known. Frank Ward Putnam, 1883.