330 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



Stone implements similar to those found in the mounds have been 

 picked up over the country, some of them fine specimens of hammers, 

 axes, grinding-stones, pipes, spear-points, etc. Probably a wagon-load 

 has been gathered, and several fine collections shipped out of the state. 



The junction of Whitewater and Walnut rivers seems to have 

 been the center of a considerable population of these ancient and un- 

 known people. On the high bluff coming abruptly to the Walnut on 

 the east are numerous low mounds and camp sites; under the rocky 

 bluff is a big spring, and in the vicinity are sink-holes. On the high 

 prairie, in a cavity in the rocky sides of one of these mounds, were 

 found four Indian pipes, peculiar, unique, skilfully carved, and drilled 

 from red quartzite, only found in Kansas along the southern limit of 

 the Glacial ice-sheet. 



A fine example of the pink and red quartzite can be seen in a 

 field of boulders just west of the Wakarusa, in Douglas county, near 

 Clinton. Other pipes, duplicates of these, have been found in the 

 same county. These jDipes were exceedingly hard ; it would seem 

 that nothing but a diamond would cut them. 



The washing down of the side of a clay bank disclosed some large 

 pottery vessels of excellent make, and there were found also a cache 

 of spear- and arrow-points. 



In the narrow strip of valley between the two rivers where they 

 join many implements were found on the surface by the first settlers 

 of the country. About 1870 Daniel Strine took it as a claim. He 

 plowed up many more implements, and later sold to another party 

 who, with a strong plow and four big horses, turned up the ground 

 much deeper than before, and brought to view a third lot of stone 

 implements. Among these were well-shaped hammers, weighing five 

 or six pounds, with a groove around the center, cut from the same red 

 quartzite. 



This black gumbo land has not increased perceptibly by surface 

 deposit in the forty years I have known it. 



These mounds extend down the Walnut to near its mouth. I 

 think it probable that this valley long ago was the home of a numer- 

 ous people antedating the roving tribes found in Kansas when first 

 explored. The abundant streams and springs of pure water, rich soil, 

 abounding in game of all kinds — buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, otter, and 

 wild turkeys — and bearing abundant timber, combined to make a 

 primitive man's ideal home. 



