PREHISTORIC EVIDENCES IN MISSOURI. 355 



upon tbeni. When dug iuto, they disclose boues, aud sometimes weapons 

 or trinkets. 



On Spencer's Creek, Balls County, near Fisher's Cave, are mounds 7 

 feet high and 40 feet in diameter, with trees 2£ feet in diameter grow- 

 ing upon them. From this place, I was informed by Mr. Fisher, 

 mounds can be traced in nearly a direct line to the mouth of Peno 

 (J reek, G miles off, none of them being over 300 yards apart, excepting 

 across the bottom-lands, for they were all built on high ground. These 

 are chieily built of stones set on edge, sloping outward, and covered with 

 about 2 feet of earth. Mr. F. also informed me that bones of men of 

 large frame had been found there, buried with their feet to the east and 

 head to the west, the grave roughly arched over with rock. 



On the west side of Cedar Creek, on Missouri Bluffs, Boone County, 

 are six mounds arranged nearly in a line and closely touching, three of 

 them in a line X. G0° E., the others N. G5° E. They arc from 20 to 30 

 feet in diameter, and from 1 to 7.V feet high, all circular. On them were 

 growing sugar trees from 1 to 2ifeet in diameter. 



A mile east, on the top of a bluff 20G feet high, is another mound, 8 

 feet high, bearing a white-oak tree 2.} feet in diameter. 



Five miles east, also on the top of a high bluff, is another mound, 8 

 feet high, with a Spanish oak 2 feet in diameter growing upon it. 



On the bluffs of Crows Fork, in Callaway County, are mounds with 

 white-oak trees 2 feet in diameter growing upon them. 



On Aux Vases Bluffs, in the same county, are many mounds yet un- 

 opened, and on Little Aux Yases Bluffs, near the Missouri bottoms, are 

 mounds 3 to 4 feet high, bearing X. G 5° W. ; two of them with white- 

 oak trees 3 feet in diameter growing upon them. 



On Middle Aux Vases and Missouri Bluffs we observed a mound 

 G feet high, with a black oak 2 feet in diameter growing upon it. One 

 mile east and on Missouri Bluffs, are three mounds in a line, N. 65° E., 

 built of stones and covered with earth. Sometimes, though rarely, 

 Hint arrow-heads have been found in these mounds, and at Saint 

 Auberts, Osage County, a pipe and stone-beads were obtained. 



But mounds are sometimes found on lower ground, though not on low 

 bottoms. They are then often much linger than those above named. 

 One at Ashburn's, near the Mississippi Elver, in the northeast part of 

 Pike County, is 6 feet high, and 51) feet in diameter. Another, unopened 

 in 1858, two miles west of Cote Sans Dessein, Callaway County, is 

 represented in Fig. 11. 



In Franklin County, on the "Hat" west of Berger Station, Pacific Rail- 

 road, are two mounds, each about 400 by 200 feet and 12 feet high, 

 formed of dark clay. The excavation indicated a curved line of stratifica- 

 tion parallel to the surface, showing that the earth had been regularly laid 

 up and packed; and pursuing the same line was a stratum of calcareous 

 concretions resembbng those sometimes found in the " bluff" formation. 

 The railroad excavations cut through these mounds, and G feet below 



