MOUND-BUILDERS IN ILLINOIS. 253 



would " stand lire." iSTo flints are found on the surface in the neigh- 

 borhood of the mounds ; but the larmers say that when their fields be- 

 come old and worn the plough often turns them up from the yellow clay 

 beneath the soil. A few rude stone axes and arrow-beads were found 

 in the ravines, where they had been washed out of the bank. A gen- 

 tleman, living near the mounds we opened, has a spear- bead, which he 

 found, when digging a foundation for his house, at a depth of over 3 

 feet. Ills house is situated on one of the highest points in this locality. 

 In our excavations into the mounds we did not find any of the black 

 surface-soil which covers the land here j the earth was entirely homo- 

 geneous, and was of the loess or bluff formation which covers these hills. 

 The mounds have the same depth of soil on them as the surroundinp- 

 surface, and there is no trace of any pits or depiessious from which the 

 earth might have been taken to construct them. 



THE MOrXD BUILDESS Ix\ THE ROCK RIVER VALLEY, ILIIXOIS. 



By James Shaw, of Mount Carroll, III. 



That part of the State of Illinois called the Kock Kiver country is, ia 

 many respects, one of the most interesting portions of the great i^'orth- 

 west. 



The early settlers and explorers found this valley thickly peopled with 

 Indian tribes, wbo regarded it a.^ a favorite hunting and fishing ground. 

 Black Hawk and his brother, the Prophet, here made their last desper- 

 ate struggle. 



Those remains which can hardly be called prehistoric, such as the 

 later Indian tribes and the early French explorers left, will be dismissed 

 with a passing notice. In some localities, the early settlers well remem- 

 ber the evidences of an Indian cultivation of the soil, where well-de- 

 fined hillocks in parallel rows marked the old corn fields. Immediately 

 east of Rock Island, and at various places in the rich alluvial bottom 

 lauds, these were found perfectly distinguishable. They are mostly 

 worn away now by the rains and subsequent cultivation. The writer 

 has also an iron lance-head, picked up many years ago on the prairies 

 of this county, whose wooden shaft was well-nigh rotted away, evi- 

 dently used by the Indians in spearing the buflalo, when they pastured 

 on our prairies. In several localities old decayed camp kettles, of brass 

 or zinc, have been found buried near the edges of streams, which were 

 evidently used by the early explorers and voyageurs before the country 

 was settled by white men. Two of these were recently found near the 

 banks of Eock Eiver, between Dixon and Sterling, and are now in the 

 collection oF Dr. Everett, of the former city. 



There is also abundant evidence tbat this Eock Eiver country was 

 densely peopled by the mound-builders. They have left their remains 



