KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. . 133 



specimens obtained in this field. For comparison with those obtained from 

 burial mounds, I invite careful examination of them. From a burial mound 

 near by, containing fragments, of very much decayed bones, were obtained a 

 few small pieces of pottery and a few beads and arrow-heads. This mound 

 is on a bluff facing the east. But as this is the gen eral direction of the 

 bluff, it seems no effort was made to secure such position. 



Three miles north of Stockdale is another point in which very interesting 

 discoveries were made by Mr. S. C. Mason, a college student. In the center 

 of a large field on the west bank of the Blue river is a slight rise in the 

 surface. But when first occupied it consisted of a square forty feet to the 

 side, and inclosed by a low wall of earth. The mound was opened, and two 

 fire- beds ten feet apart were uncovered at a depth of two feet. These were 

 stone, three feet square, burned quite red, and broken by the heat. All about 

 these fire-beds, and below the depth to which it had been plowed, the soil 

 was mixed with ashes, charcoal, burnt clay, flint chips and fragments of pot- 

 tery. The charcoal was from three varieties of wood. The diameter of 

 some of the vessels, as determined from the fragments obtained, was nine 

 inches to a foot. This was March 6th, 1880. Two miles from the mouth of 

 Mill creek Mr. Mason found a similar bed, partly washed away by the stream. 

 An hour's work here yielded pottery, flint implements, charcoal, and a wasp's 

 nest burned black ; and Mr. Mason thinks it the oldest mud-dauber's nest 

 on record. The specimens before you are from these places. 



On the 29th of May last, we opened some mounds one mile east of Man- 

 hattan, and on the opposite bluff of the Kansas river, at a sharp angle in 

 the bluff. One of these contained, in addition to the fragments of bones, a 

 few arrow-heads and beads. The other one gave better returns for the labor. 

 There were burials at two levels. The upper portions of the first skeleton 

 reached were so far decayed that only the teeth and small fragments of the 

 skull could be found. These showed the action of fire. The lai'ger bones 

 of the limbs were in such position from the teeth as to indicate a reclining 

 posture. In the position where we judged the head ought to be, several 

 fragments of pottery were to be found. Put together, they form the portion 

 of a vessel before you. Whether this was a true burial urn, I do not assert ; 

 but the intricate ornamental figures upon the urn betoken no ordinary 

 vessel. 



About one foot below this skeleton, and two feet west of it, was another. 

 It was better preserved, and many of the bones were taken out ; but they 

 were fragile and easily broken. This body had been placed in a sitting pos- 

 ture, facing the east or northeast. No arrow-heads, pottery or beads were 

 found about this skeleton. 



For more than a y^ar one of our young men, Mr. W. J. Griffing, has 

 been hunting up these burial mounds and opening them. On last Thanks- 

 giving day he invited me to assist him in the further excavation of a mound 

 about three miles west of Manhattan, on a high point of the bluff between 



