238 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, J901. 



ment in the case until more critical and exhaustive studies have been 

 made Resolving to return at an early date and make fuller exami- 

 nations, I hastened on to Indian Territory. 



THE SPRINGS AT AFTON. 



The village of Alton. Indian Territory, a station on the St. Louis 

 and San Francisco Railway, is in the midst of a plain which occupies 

 the angle between the Arkansas River and its northern tributary, the 

 Neosho or Grand River. The former stream enters the Territory 

 from Kansas on the north, flowing southeastward and passing into 

 Arkansas at Fort Smith, while the Grand rises in southeastern Kansas 

 and southwestern Missouri and flows southward across the plains, 

 joining the Arkansas in the Cherokee Nation, 45 miles south of 

 Afton. Forests grow along the more rugged bluffs and on the occa- 

 sional low hills, but the general region is almost treeless. The country 

 is now very well settled, and farming and grazing are carried on with 

 success. 



The geologic formations underlying the immediate region of Afton 

 appear to be of Carboniferous age, the strata being approximately 

 horizontal, but they are much obscured by superficial deposits save in 

 the banks of the rivers and their larger tributaries. 



The springs with which the fossil remains and artifacts were asso- 

 ciated are in a shallow wash at the very head of one of the lateral" 

 branches of Horse Creek, a tributary of the Neosho which falls into it 

 from the north. The wash has no water, and has probably never car- 

 ried a stream save i 11 times of heavy rainfall or as a result of the melt- 

 ing of snow in the spring. In summer the water of the springs sinks 

 from sight a few hundred yards from the source. The wash, which 

 ramifies in various directions, is in places 200 feet wide and has a level 

 floor only slightly depressed beneath the surface of the surrounding 

 prairie. In this Hat space the water of the springs, spreading out, 

 forms a marshy area an acre or more in extent, which is much 

 trampled by cattle when they have access to it, as it doubtless was at 

 an earlier date by herds of buffalo and possibly by greater mammals 

 that went before them. The surface is soft and spongy, sinking 

 beneath the feet, and in approaching the basin of the principal spring 

 it was necessary to lav down boards to insure a footing. The photo- 

 graph (Plate 1) conveys a good idea of the appearance of the spring 

 with which we are mainly concerned and of the general surround- 

 ings. The upper ends of the rough boards of the box forming the 

 spring basin appear above the surface of the marsh. Besides this 

 large spring, a second very weak spring occurs some 40 feet to the 

 west, and a third, a little stronger, rises in a side wash perhaps 15( 

 yards to the northeast. The water rising in the principal spring flows 



