MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 53.T 



previously to the visit of tbe autliors. It is said to have contained a 

 stone vault, in which were discovered human crania, &c. These were 

 very badly decayed. A sandstone mortar and arrow-points were also 

 found. The burial seems to have been in a sitting posture. 



9. The first eight mounds are in a right line, but No. 9 is GO feet east 

 of No. 8. It was 5 feet high, and yielded nothing upon exploration. 



MOUNDS IN RALLS COUNTY, MISSOURL 



By George L. Hardy and Fred. B. Scheetz, of Monroe, Mo. 



The only ancient remains in Ealls County, so far as known to the 

 writers, are what are commonly called mounds. They are located on 

 Salt River, a western tributary of the Mississippi, passing through 

 townships 55 and 50, in ranges 5, 0, and 7 west of the fifth prime me- 

 ridian. 



The mounds are invariably found AA'ithin less than a mile of a stream 

 affording a permanent water supply. They are always in the bottoms 

 or on the crests of bluffs and ridges, bordered either by the streams or 

 the bottom lands, mostly by the latter. 



It is impossible to state what changes have taken place in the course 

 of the streams since the erection of the mounds, but doubtless in 

 some places they have been very great. The growth of timber is uni- 

 versally the same on the mounds and in the surrounding forests. 



Occasionally a single one is found, but they are almost invariably in 

 groups, numbering from 3 to 10, and sometimes more. Commonly they 

 follow the crest of the ridge, but when they occur in the bottoms or on 

 a level bluff they are found in direct lines or in gentle curves, extend- 

 ing generally east and west. They exist in large numbers in almost 

 every bottom and on nearly every bluff, on both sides of the river, 

 throughout the entire county, as well as on its branches near the main 

 stream. 



The mounds are usually circular in ground j^lan, and rise above the 

 present level from 2 to 12 feet. They are composed either wholly of 

 earth, wholly of stone, or of the two combined. Wliere stone was used 

 at all, the plan seems to have been first to pave the natural surfiice 

 with flat stones in one or two thicknesses for a foundation. In one 

 case the stones were thrown together indiscriminately. Peculiar con- 

 structions will be more fully noted in the descriptions given below of 

 mounds examined by the i)resent writers. 



The stones were procured from the beds of the neighboring streams 

 or from beneath the bluffs. Rarely can it be determined whence the 

 earth was taken, there being only one example where there was any 

 indication of the removal of the earth in the vicinity. 



