826 



PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



it was believed that a " slide " of the banks of the pit bad carried from 

 near the surface the skeleton and weapons of one of these ancient in- 

 habitants of our country. The workman who made the discovery said 

 that he first removed the layer of clay, and then found the skeleton in 

 the sand under it; and the boy who was assisting him, ami who was* 

 present, corroborated his statement. Workmen who found arrowheads 

 or spear-heads were positive that they had not been carried by a slide 

 to where they were discovered. They were lying in the sand just above 

 a layer of clay, and, in one instance, in the clay. Being under level 

 ground, and quite a distance from a bank or hill of any kind, it is im- 

 possible that they could have been deposited by a slide of the earth 

 prior to the opening of the sand pit. It is not likely that they were 

 buried from the present surface. If nothing but the skeleton and ac- 

 companying stones bad been seen, this might have served as an expla- 

 nation ; but at different places in the pit, and at different levels, other 

 objects were found. It is not probable that they were buried singly at 

 such a depth. After a careful examination the writer is firmly con- 

 vinced that the third theory is correct, viz, that the objects were de- 

 posited in the bluff during the period of its erection, or growth. 



ROSS MOUNDS. 



On the north bank of the Sangamon River, in Cooper Township, on 

 the SE. ^ of the SE. J Sec. 5, is a group of mounds of more than ordi- 

 nary interest, from the fact that an attempt was made by the builders 

 to protect a tract of land by mounds on all its sides easily assailed by 

 an eneinv. 



Fig. 1. — Ross Mounds, Sangamon Co., 111. 

 The south face of the bluff along the river is almost perpendicular, 

 and it would be difficult for an enemy to make a successful attack from 

 this direction. Consequently no mounds are found here. At the west- 



