438 DEPOSITS OF FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 



Ou the eastern bank of the Illinois, .below the confluence of the 

 Sangamon River, and four miles below Frederickville, is the city of 

 Beardstown, in Cass County. Immediately ou the bank of the river at 

 this place can yet be seen the remnant of a large mound of artificial 

 construction, which formerly rose 30 feet or more above the level of the 

 surrounding country, and afforded from its summit an uninterrupted view 

 for miles up and down the river. This fine monument has succumbed 

 to the progress of modern civilization, and almost entirely disappeared* 



In the summer of 1872, 1 received intelligence that a deposit of the same 

 sort of flints had been found at Beardstown. In excavating a cellar for a 

 new building on Main street, the laborers had reached the depth of 4 feet, 

 when they struck the flints, and soon threw them all out, about a thou- 

 sand iu number, a large portion of which I secured. The disposition of 

 the flints in this deposit was different from that in the Ohio mound, and 

 that of the Frederickville deposit also. The^e were imbedded in the 

 bank of the river, above the reach of highest water, and about 300 

 yards up the bank of the stream from the large mound. An excava- 

 tion about 5 feet deep had been made through the sand to the drift-clay, 

 and, instead of being placed on edge, as in the two other deposits, a 

 layer of the disks had been placed flat on the clay, with points up 

 stream, and overlapping each other as shingles are arranged on a roof. 

 Over the first layer of flints was a stratum of clay 2 inches iu thickness j 

 then another layer of flints was arranged as the first, over which was 

 spread another 2-inch stratum of clay, and so on, until the deposit 

 comprised five series or layers of flints, when the whole was covered 

 with sand. The area occupied by these buried fliuts was an ovoid, 

 correspoudiug in outline with one of the implements, and measured 

 in length about G feet, and in width -l feet. But the apex, estimated to 

 be one third of the area, was cut off by the cellar-wall of the store-house 

 which been erected there twenty years previously to this date. On 

 inquiry I learned from an old citizen who was present when the cellar 

 was dug, that the deposit of flints was then discovered, and about five 

 hundred of them were thrown out ; and that the discovery at that time 

 attracted but little attention, "for," he remarked, "Indian flints and 

 stone axes were as common here then as brick-bats are now." No traces 

 of fire were visible, nor had there been within the recollection of the old- 

 est settler of the place any mound or other external object to mark the 

 place of deposit. The flints from this lot are identical iu material, color, 

 style of execution, and general outline and dimensions with those I have 

 seen from the deposits at Frederickville and Clark's Work iu Ohio. 

 None of these bore any marks of wear or use. A few of them are almost 

 circular in shape. Some are rough, but the majority are very accu- 

 rately proportioned and neatly fiuished, which we. may accept as 

 proof that the implements were manufactured by several artisans, 

 ■who possessed unequal degees of skill. Their average length is 6 



