162 BULLETIN 183, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ments. Some of Stevenson's inferences and general deductions, not 

 quoted here, establish him as an out-and-out amateur or a dilettante 

 who gave free rein to his imagination. But it may be questioned 

 whether his remarks are any more open to suspicion than the news- 

 paper story preceding them. There is nothing inherently improbable 

 in the discovery of pipes, worked flints, paint, and galena, for most or 

 all of these items have also been reported from mounds in central 

 Missouri below the mouth of Blackwater River. As to the stone disk 

 with grooved edge and the pierced slate "skinning knife" no valid 

 identifications are possible from the available evidence; the former 

 suggests an ear plug, the latter possibly a gorget or pendant. Conch 

 shells have been found at other Missouri sites. Mica is rather more 

 unusual. But most extraordinary of all is the clay vessel said to have 

 been inlaid with copper and silver bands. For Missouri, at least, this 

 would appear to be a unique specimen, at any rate if of aboriginal 

 manufacture. Unfortunately, my attempts to trace the subsequent 

 history of these specimens have not been very productive, and their 

 present whereabouts, if indeed they still exist, are unknown.^^ 



The Blackwater River, flowing east by north from Warrensburg, 

 unites with the Lamine to empty into the Missouri in northern Cooper 

 County, 5 or 6 miles above Boonville. By water, this is about 140 

 miles below Fishing River and 180 miles below Kansas City ; approxi- 

 mate airline distances are 75 and 100 miles, respectively. The arche- 

 ology of the intervening region is not well known ; I have been unable 

 to find any record of vault mounds but have no doubt that examples of 

 the type will yet come to light here. At any rate, below the Black- 

 water they occur again in some numbers along the Missouri, and par- 

 ticularly, it would seem, on its left bank. 



In southeastern Howard County, which lies directly across the river 

 from Cooper County, is the Kurtz mound (fig. 20, 8) opened by Fowke 

 in 1907 (Fowke, 1910, pp. 63-65). This was 11 feet high by 60 feet 

 in diameter. At the center a slab area measuring 13 feet by 11 feet 9 

 inches covered a rectangular vault, 7 feet 9 inches long by about 3 feet 

 wide, with rounded ends. There was no doorway. Twenty-one 

 inches below the top of the wall was a rock pavement on which lay 

 traces of a skeleton. Beneath one of the slabs were three tubular shell 

 beads an inch long. Removal of the pavement and enclosing wall 

 disclosed the fact that the structure had been built over an earlier 

 burial chamber "whose exact inner dimensions could not then be 

 ascertained ; but it was considerably larger than the upper vault. It 

 contained the remains of at least 25 individuals, ranging in years from 



" In reply to my letter of inquiry (March 16, 1940), A. A. Lind, supervisor of the Museum 

 at the Central Missouri State Teachers College, Warrensburg, states : "I fear the interesting 

 artifacts you mention were all lost in the Are that destroyed the buildings of the Normal 

 School in 1915 . . ." (letter of March 20, 1940). 



