ADDITIONAL EXPLORATIONS AT TOOLESBORO, IOWA. 43 



ADDITIONAL EXPLORATIONS AT TOOLESBORO. 



Read before the Academy, November 2~th, iSSb. 



Having, by the courtesy of Mrs. E. H. Mallory, of Toolesboro, 

 Louisa County, received permission to explore one of the remaining 

 undisturbed mounds of the group, and which is situated on her land, 

 the undersigned visited that place on the 18th of October for that pur- 

 pose. We found the mound — No. 5 of that group — situated in a 

 garden where the ground has been cultivated for many years, until the 

 height of the mound has been reduced to an extent which cannot now 

 be determined. Judging from the others of the same group which 

 have not been so changed in proportions, it must probably have been 

 from eight to ten feet high. 



Securing some laborers to assist in the work, we began by opening 

 a trench, about five by eighteen feet, near the south side of the mound, 

 and running east and west. The soil of which it was composed was a 

 mixed earth such as is usually met with, very hard, and containing here 

 and there minute bits of charcoal. At the depth of four feet four 

 inches, we came upon an evenly spread layer of quite clean yellow 

 clay, from half an inch to an inch in thickness. This was evidently an 

 artificial deposit placed upon the surface after removing the soil, which 

 in that locality is very thin, and is slightly below the level of the sur- 

 rounding surface of the field. We dug down below it in several places, 

 but found only the natural, undisturbed earth. 



Finding no human remains or relics thus far, we cut down another 

 five feet in width along the north side of the excavation already men- 

 tioned. In this, about half-way down, we found a small rough chert 

 knife or scraper. In this cut, at the bottom, at the west end, were a 

 few human bones, not very well preserved; from which, however, we 

 secured one skull in tolerably good condition, and the frontal bone of 

 another of remarkably low, fiat, brutal form. With these bones was 

 the shell of a turtle, broken into many and small pieces, showing, how- 

 ever, that it had been sculptured to some extent, though it was in so 

 small fragments that the design of the cuttings could not be made out. 

 This excavation was extended farther west and south, entirely beyond 

 all indications of remains of any kind. At the bottom of this excava- 

 tion, and about at the middle of the mound, we found a very finely 

 carved, smooth and symmetrical curved-base pipe, with plain, round 



