44 
POPULAR SCIENCE liEWS. 
[March, 1890. 
three hundred vards, is this Indian camp. The 
refuse is thickest between the railroad and the river. 
There seems to have been but little occupancy east 
of the track. This peculiarity can be easily 
accounted for, because the Indians always choose 
to have their wigwams located as near the bank of 
the stream as possible ; hence the greater number 
crowd to the river front. The presence of so many 
persons would cause a heavy deposit of wigwam 
refuse. 
There is nothing upon the surface in the river 
bottoms at Fort Ancient. The deposits range from 
two to five Teet in depth, with layers of loam alter- 
nating, and thus indicating occupancy at three 
distinct periods. When our survey located at Fort 
Ancient, in July of last year, we began " prospect- 
ing" in various portions of the ijieadows lining the 
river by sinking small excavations here and there. 
The river at this place has banks from twelve to 
fifteen feet in height. It has cut into the rich, soft 
soil, and is rapidly wearing down the east bank. In 
its encroachments upon the farms it washed out 
considerable pottery and animal bones. Those who 
first learned of this informed me, and I went to the 
spot to investigate. From what I could learn I had 
formed the opinion that tliere was a cemetery some 
feet below the present surface. The subsequent 
examination of the place proved that a few persons 
had been interred, but that the site was occupied 
more as a town than as a burial spot. 
The first few holes sunk struck one of the most 
populous portions of the village. As soon as the 
discovery was made, broad trenches were run in 
various directions, and extended for several hundred 
feet; thus a great portion of the town was laid bare. 
At a depth of two feet from the surface, a thiri layer 
of ashes was found intermixed witli burnt rock, 
pottery, fragments, and broken animal bones. 
This deposit was made by the last village, and can- 
not be very old. The deposit of sand and loam 
above is due to the encroachments of the river, 
which overflows its banks every few years, and 
leaves in one place heavy layers of mud, while in 
another it may erode and transport the soil to some 
distant point. The pottery and bones found at a 
depth of two feet from the surface do not look as 
old as those occurring further down, nor are the 
bones in as decayed condition, but are quite well 
preserved. It is a remarkable fact that the pottery 
found on the later village occupation is plain, while 
nearly all that found in the earlier epochs is deco- 
rated and of a superior finish. 
Four feet from the surface a uniform layer of 
relics occurs. In this many shells of the fresh- 
water unio and the backs of the land tbrtoise are 
found. There is little or no burnt rock, the pottery 
is very common, and not a few flint knives, broken 
arrow-heads, and useless celts may be gathered 
from every excavation. The village that deposited 
the layer must have occupied this region several 
hundred years ago. In spots the accumulation of 
ashes is several feet in thickness ; it is in these ash- 
pits that we find many bones of birds, fish, and 
beasts. Some of these bones have been split 
lengthwise to extract the marrow. From hundreds 
of split bones (nearly always bones of the extremi- 
ties) of deer and bear, we ascertain that the natives 
consider^ the marrow a very great delicacy. In 
estimating the age of the second village, a number 
of things must be carefully considered. It was 
occupied when the country was quite heavily 
wooded, and the two feet of accumulated soil is due 
to the decaying vegetable matter. The .j-iver has 
been subject to sudden rise and fall, to %pring floods 
and summer droughts, since the country has been 
cleared. Before the . timber was destroyed, the 
channel held an even stage of water the year round. 
Of course, the winter floods came and caused high 
water for a time, bufthe stage was more even — 
there were no extremes. The meadows along the 
banks were in many places vast swamps; the creeks 
and tributaries were clogged by fallen trees and 
brush ; the river itself was retarded in its course by 
piles of drift. The thick woods that lined each 
bank were undermined in places by the current cut- 
ting into the bank. The trees fell out into the 
stream and checked the rapid flow of the water. 
Old settlers have told me that in 1810 to 1820, when 
they first visited the Miami Valley, the country was 
heavily timbered, that swamps lined the river 
margin, and that sudden floods were of rare occur- 
rence. All this being taken into consideration, we 
can readily see how much longer it would take the 
soil to accumulate between the second and third 
epochs than between the third and the present 
surface of the meadow. 
Below the second village site there is one foot of 
black soil which contains nothing whatever. Below 
it, or five feet from the surface, lies the heaviest 
deposit of all three— the one made by the first 
aborigines who occupied the site. This layer varies 
in thickness, and contains the most artistically deco- 
rated pottery, I ever saw. (The pottery is fragmen- 
tary.) The bones of the following birds, fish, 
reptiles, and animals have been found and identi- 
fied : Turkey, quail, hawk, duck, owl, gar, cat-fish, 
turtle, bear, deer, elk, wolf, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, 
ground-hog, musk-rat. Many mussel shells were 
found whi%h have been perforated- in the center. 
The finger thrust through this perforation would 
render Irhe manipulation of the large shell easy, and 
thus they were used as scrapers, cutters, and 
dippers. Some of these shells were 4% by 7 inches. 
Ashes have a wonderfui preserving power; there- 
fore the most minute bones, and even the scales of 
fish, were almost as perfect as the day they were 
thrown down, although centuries may have elapsed 
since these bones and scales were a part of live 
animals, and fishes. In some places we found bone 
awls and perforaters, made from the bones of the 
turkey and deer, and having very sharp points. 
These were undoubtedly used as needles by the 
squaws in the manufacture of hunting shirts, leg- 
gins, moccasins, etc. 
It was the custom of some of the tribes of Ameri- 
can aborigines to bury, children underneath the 
wigwam in which they died, or at the edge of the 
village. No doubt this custom was practiced here, 
for in the course of the excavations the skeletons of 
three children were found, accompanied by small 
ornaments of bone and unio shell. These skeletons 
were poorly preserved, being but eighteen to twenty 
inches below the present surface in two instances, 
and three feet and a half deep in three other cases. 
The bodies were walled in with large, flat, water- 
worn slabs of limestone, transported from the river 
bed near by. The stones were placed on edge at 
the head and feet and on each side of the body. 
One large one served as a covering to the rude 
tomb. I think these infant'burials were made by 
the inhabitants of the third village, as the lower 
layers in the case of the deeper graves have been 
disturbed. The reason that the skeletons are so 
much decayed is because they are not surrounded 
by ashes, as are the other deposits, and because the 
floods fill the torpbs with water, causing rapid 
decomposition of the bones. 
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 
[Specially Ob.served tor Po2>ular Science News,] 
METEOROLOGY FOR JANUARY, 1890. 
TEMFERATUKK. 
Average Thermometer. 
At 7 A. M 27.90° 
At 2 p. M 30.71° 
At 9 p. M 32.24° 
Whole Month .... 32.24° 
Second Averag;e . . .i 33.20° 
Last 20 Januarys 
Second Average 
24.49° 
24.28° 
Lowest. 
17.50° 
in 1875. 
Highest. Range. 
64° 
59° 
64 
34.00" 
in 1889 
4> 
48° 
54° 
54°' 
16.50° 
16.59° 
Chemical names for streets have been adopted 
for a certain Australian town. Argent, Beryl, Co- 
balt, Kaolin, Iodide, Oxide, Bromide, and Sulphide 
are favorites. It is significant that along the latter 
are situated churches and recreation grounds. 
We have another remarkably- warm January to 
report, exceeded only twice in twenty years, namely, 
last year (see above), and in i8So, when the tem- 
perature averaged 32.98°. The lowest point reached 
the present January was 10" above zero, on the 25th, 
and the highest 64°, on the 2d. The loth was the 
coldest day, with an average of 12 33°, and the 2d 
was the warmest, with a mean of 57.33°. The 20th 
was the next warmest, at 46.66°, and the nth the 
next coldest, at 17.66°. The first week averaged 
41.48° — so near mid-winter! In the twenty-one 
observations the mercury went below the freezing- 
point only five times, and the extremes were 22° 
and 64 -. The loth had the least range of any day, 
being only 3°, and the 25th the widest — 30° in four- 
teen hours, of which 26° occurred in seven hours, 
an average rise of nearly 4° per hour! There were 
only nine days when the mercury stood below the 
freezing-point at 2 P. M.. Such warm and change- 
able weather in mid-winter was unfavorable for 
health, and "la grippe" prevailed, with a number 
of deaths from this now memorabje disease. 
SKY. 
The face of the sky, in 93 observations, gave 43 
fair, 16 cloudy, 21 overcast, S rainy, and 5 snowy, — 
— a percentage of 46.2 fair. The average for the 
last twenty Januarys has been 53.7 fair, with ex- 
tremes of 40.9 in 18S4, and 61.3 in 187S and 18S8. 
January has been less fair than the present only 
three times in the last twenty years. The morning 
of the 13th was foggy, and the 22(1 and 28th were 
clear and cold. Only a few- days could be called 
fine. 
PRECIPITATION. \ 
The amount of rainfall the last month, including 
4.5 inches of snow, melted, was 3.04 inches, while 
the average for the last twenty-two Januarys has 
been 4.83, with exti-emes of i So in 1871, and 8.85 in 
1S89. The " Signal Service" at Boston reports this 
to be the driest January in twenty years, while my 
record gives seven drier than the present, illustrat- 
ing how different localities may vary in this respect, 
though not very far distant from each other. The 
small amount of snow fell on four different days, 
between the loth and 27th, and soon disappeared,, 
leaving the ground usually bare and often muddy. 
Only two days of imperfect sleighing thus far, andi 
the prospect for a good ice crop is now quite: 
unfavorable. 
PRESSURE. 
The average pressure the past month was 30. iir 
inches, with extremes of 29.44 on the 8th, and 
30.75 on the 1st,— a range of 1.31 inches. This 
is the highest average for January on my record., 
and has been exceeded but twice in all the months 
of the year. The average pressure fpi* January in 
seventeen years has been 29.921 ijiches, with ex- 
tremes of 29.840 in 1879, aid 30-111 in -1890, — a 
range of .271 inch. The sum of the daily variation.s 
the last month was 11.39 inches, giving a mean 
daily movement of .367 inch — the largest, with three 
exceptions, in seventeen years. This average in 
January has been .302, with extremes of .196 and 
