MOUND EXPLORATION NEAR PINE CREEK. I97 



REPORT OF MOUND EXPLORATION NEAR PINE 

 CREEK, MUSCATINE COUNTY, IOWA. 



BY C. E. HARRISON. 



On the 14th of the present month (September, 1883), Rev. J. Gass, 

 W. H. Pratt, and myself visited a group of mounds situated on a 

 prominent point on the edge of the Mississippi bluffs, about half a mile 

 below Pine Creek, Muscatine County, Iowa — a position commanding 

 an extended view up and down the river. 



The group consists of ten mounds — two of which, however, are so 

 small as to be scarcely noticeable. All of them except one — the 

 second in size and elevation — seemed to have been previously ex- 

 plored. This one is of circular shape, about nine feet high and fifty 

 feet in diameter. 



Employing four men to assist us, we opened a trench across it from 

 east to west, twenty-five feet in length and five feet wide, which we 

 carried down to a depth of from six to ten feet, removing some forty 

 cubic yards of earth. The earth was a light clay intermingled with a 

 darker soil, very soft throughout — softer than has been met with in 

 any mound we have previously explored. 



After reaching a depth of about six feet, we found slight traces of 

 ashes scattered through the earth in the central portion of the mound, 

 and increasing in quantity as we proceeded downward. It was mixed 

 with red clay, apparently reddened by burning. At the depth of nine 

 feet, it was found that a somewhat uneven and discontinuous layer of 

 ashes, in some places an inch in thickness, occupied a space of some 

 three feet in width, beginning a few feet north of the center and ex- 

 tending across the excavation. On following this, it was found to 

 divide, at about the center of the mound, into two branches, each 

 about two feet wide, one turning to the south-west and westward, and 

 the other to the south. The former was followed about ten feet, to its 

 termination, and the latter about six feet, where it also ended. The 

 earth was examined with the utmost care from the beginning to the 

 end of the work, and not a particle of charcoal was found. The ash- 

 bed rested upon the natural, undisturbed clay. Somewhat above the 

 ash-bed were found a few scattered pieces of sandstone, some of which 



[Proc. D. a. N. S., Vol. IV.] 21 [July 8, 1885.] 



