FOWKE] ANTIQUITIES OF MISSOURI 65 
choice lay between tearing it all out hastily, determining as accurately 
as possible the method of construction and securing what it might 
contain, or abandoning it, practically untouched, for someone in the 
neighborhood to demolish. 
MOUNDS OPPOSITE KANSAS CITY (14) 
Four miles directly north of Kansas City, lying along both sides 
of the line separating Clay and Platte counties, on the farms of Mr. 
Hugene Keller and Mr. J. P. Brenner, are 18 mounds located on a 
ridge approximately parallel with the Missouri bluffs and a fourth of 
a mile from the ends of the projecting spurs. These mounds are 
not evenly distributed, but are in subgroups of three, three, five, 
and seven, on knolls separated by slight depressions. All of them 
have been excavated to a greater or less extent by relic hunters, 
and more methodically by members of the Kansas City Academy of 
Science and others. Abridgments of published reports are presented 
below. 
Partly as a result of these reports, the impression has gone abroad 
that the stone chambers described were intended as places of occupa- 
tion, or at least as shelters, and the name ‘‘underground houses”’ 
has been applied to them. It seems that in some of the mounds no 
stones were found, thus casting doubt upon the residential theory. 
In an article on ‘‘The Missouri Mound Builders,’* Judge E. P. 
West describes the result of his explorations in the group containing 
five, all of which he excavated. Three of these contained vaults; the 
two others were composed entirely of earth. A portion of hisreport 
is reproduced here, as follows: 
Number one, the most easterly, contains a stone chamber seven and one-half by 
eight feet, three feet high, with a doorway two and a half feet wide in the center of 
the south wall. Within the chamber, and on the plane of the base of the wall, five 
human crania and other human bones were found. Two of these crania were on the 
west side, two on the east side, and one near the center. One of them was entirely 
pierced, probably by a small arrowhead. 
Number two contained a vault eight and one-half by eight and one-half feet, three 
and a half feet high, with a doorway two and a half feet wide on the south side. This 
chamber contained large quantities of burnt human and animal bones, burnt clay, 
wood ashes, and charcoal, extending from the plane of the base of the wall to within 
eighteen inches of the upper surface. Many fragments of human crania were found. 
One was eighteen inches below the top, better preserved than the others, and prob- 
ably an intrusive burial. 
Mound five contained a stone chamber eight and a half by eight and a half feet, 
four feet high, with a doorway two and a half feet wide at center of south wall. It 
contained a large quantity of burnt human and animal bones, burnt clay, wood ashes, 
and charred wood, all intermingled and extending entirely over the floor, at irregular 
depths. In the center of the chamber this mingled ash heap was not less than eight 
inches thick. Beneath it, on the natural surface, parts of four skeletons were found. 
@In the Western Review of Science and Industry, 1, 15, Kansas City, Mo., 1877-78. 
5780—Bull. 37—10—5 
