99 



A Peobable Origin of the Small Mounds of the Lower 

 Mississippi and Texas Coast. 



Albert B. Reagan. 



Noting several articles "Ou the Origiu of the Small Mounds of tlic 

 liOwer Mississippi and Texas.'" in Science Vol. XXIII (Mr. P. .1. Farns- 

 worth, pp. 583-4; A. C. Veateh. p. 35; Irving H. Wentworth, p. 819), leads 

 me to make a few suggestions on the subject. In the region mentioned 

 these mounds are very numerous, too numerous, it seems, to be Indian 

 mounds, except the class of mounds mentioned by Mr. Irving II. Went- 

 worth. 



The mounds mentioned by Mr. Wentworth are, no doubt, of Indian 

 origin. While with the Apache Indians some year.s ago, the writer saw 

 several mounds of this tyjie constructed. All these were erected not as 

 places for sacrifice or any ceremonies of that sort, but as places lor cook- 

 ing the tuber-root of the Af/arc americaiin. In this cooking process, a 

 shallow pit is first dug and lined with cobble-stones. A fire is then built 

 in it and kept burning till the rocks are at white heat. Wet twigs (or 

 grass) are then placed in a thick layer over the live coals and rocks. On 

 these the Agave tubers, a wagon load or more, are quickly i)iled. and over 

 these, after they have been covered with twigs or gr;iss, a thick layer 

 of cobble-stones are piled. All then is covered with wood, which is ig- 

 nited and kept burning for about twelve liours, while the Indians dance 

 around it. When the rocks are sutticiently cool, after the fire has been 

 let die down, the toj) is removed and the cooked tubers taken out of this 

 peculiar oven, packed in baskets, and taken to the distant "tepees," leav- 

 ing the rockpile with an elliptical, practically flsit top. Probably the 

 mounds mentioned above W(>ve constructed for the same or for similar 

 purposes. 



Concerning the other niduuds of the region, may they not be due to 

 mudlumi> fonyation in a former geological epoch? 



In an article on "The Exceptional Nature and Genesis of the Missis- 

 sippi Delta." K. W\ Hilgard states (Science, Vol. XXIV, pp. 861-866) that 

 "iiiudlumps are now being upheaved in the channel of the lower Missis- 



