174 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



mound during the floods of 1927, thus removing any possibility of 

 their having been erected to serve as places of refuge during high 

 water periods. 



But it was at Jonesville at the junction of the Ouachita, Catahoula, 

 and Tensas rivers to form Black River that the writer was to experi- 

 ence his most bitter disappointment. Jonesville, or Troyville, as it was 

 formerly called, is built on the site of a mound village similar to the one 

 at Marksville. Another similarity is the low embankment of earth that 

 encloses the ancient town on three sides between the Little and Black 

 rivers. Conspicuous in the group was a very large mound possibly 

 similar to the great mound of Cahokia, as it is described as being a 

 great flat-topped pyramid with another broad platform near its base. 

 Estimates as to its original size vary, some observers of over a hun- 

 dred years ago giving its height as 60 to 80 feet, and its base area 

 as covering over an acre of ground. Thomas in 1882 described it 

 as being 45 feet high, 270 feet long, and 180 feet wide. This was the 

 structure which the writer, visiting Jonesville about the middle of 

 August, found had been levelled to the ground only three days before 

 his arrival by a road construction company which used the dirt as a 

 fill for the approach to the new highway bridge being built at that 

 point. Of course the owner of the mound was delighted at the op- 

 portunity to get rid of what had been to him a " white elephant," but 

 the loss to science from this act is inestimable. This was the first time 

 such an enormous mound had ever been so thoroughly razed and it 

 would have been a golden opportunity to have studied the method of 

 construction of such a mound and perhaps to have found out some- 

 thing of the purpose for which it was built. 



On looking over the site where the mound had stood it was noticed 

 that scraps of cane stuck out above the levelled surface over an area 

 150 feet long and 50 feet wide. This possibly was part of the ma- 

 terial from which the temple or chief's house had been built. Later for 

 some unknown reason the great mound had been raised over it. An- 

 other curious thing was that various colored clays were found which 

 were foreign to the native gumbo of that region, and hence must 

 have been brought from some unknown locality. Some of the clay 

 contained a bright blue mineral, " vivianite," evidently used as col- 

 oring matter for some of the wood in the structure, as a fragment of 

 timber thus colored was found. This instance serves to show the 

 immediate need for scientific excavation of these mounds in Louisiana 

 before any more of them are destroyed. 



