580 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



ANTIQUITIES OF JACKSON COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 



By G. H. French, of Carhondale, III. 



Among the many objects attesting that Southern Illinois is part of 

 a region once inhabited by a race of people abont -srhom comiiaratively 

 little beyond conjectnre is known, the various mounds and cairns form 

 a conspicuous part. The exploration of one of these structures was 

 the subject of two visits by Dr. E. B. Chapin, a resident of this i)lace, 

 and myself on the 3d of April and the 3d of June, 1878. The mound 

 is situated on the farm of E. M. Norbury, about 3 miles south of 

 here, and is about 40 rods west from the Illinois Central Eailrcad, on 

 a hill that forms a spur from a comparatively level area of land back 

 a little from a creek on the south, and just in the edge of a piece of 

 second-growth oak timber. Situated as it was on the point of this 

 hill, it was difficult to judge at first of either its height above the nat- 

 ural ground or of its size; but subsequent examination showed that it 

 was, in its highest i)art, about 3 feet above the original ground, and it 

 appeared to be 25 or 30 feet in diameter. We found, however, that in- 

 side these limits was a sericvS of stones that seemed to have been placed 

 around the base of the mound to hold the dirt in position as it was 

 heaped up, and as the elements in time had removed the dirt from the 

 higher parts and spread it around and beyond these stones they had 

 become partly or wholly covered up, while the extent of the structure 

 was increased. If this theory is correct, and the position of the con- 

 tents of the mound seemed to indicate that it is, the mound was origi- 

 nally oval or nearly oblong, and measured 12 by 15 feet in its shortest 

 and longest diameters. 



For 2 or 3 rods to the south and for 20 or more rods to the north and 

 northwest, chips of flint were abundant, both mingled with the soil and 

 on its top. The same soil and flints mixed with broken bits of pottery 

 formed the general substance of the mound. These seemed to indicate 

 that the immediate vicinity had been the site of an Indian workshop 

 and i)erhaps camping ground. In the time when this ground was 

 covered with the primeval forest the small branches only a few rods 

 to the east and west would have afforded them water most of the 

 year, if this locality ever formed a permanent place of abode; while the 

 creek, from 50 to 80 rods to the south, would be the unfailing source 

 when the heats of summer had dried up the others. Several other facts 

 seemed to point to this as having been for them a central position. 

 A-cross the creek, that is to the south, and 80 or more rods on the other 

 side, in a southwesterly direction, was a stone mound that we also ex- 

 plored, but found no remains of any character either in or about it. 

 It seemed to be simply a monument of direction as much as anything we 

 could discover, an irregular cairn of stones in such a position that the 

 natural contour of the land would indicate there might have been here 



