62 BUREAU OF AMERTCATT ETHNOLOGY [boll. 71 



which were three hiimnn adult skeletons and the sknll of an infant, 

 all side by side, with their feet toward the east. Around the neck 

 of one were a number of copper and bone beads, the latter of which 

 crumbled immediately. The copper ones were made of sheet copper 

 rolled up." (Jackson, (1), pp. 374-376.) 



A mound in Whiteside County, Illinois, was found to cover an in- 

 closure built of the " fossiliferous limestone common in the neigh- 

 borhood. It was about three feet high, two feet thick at the top, and 

 three feet at the base, piled up loosely, the lower stones broad and 

 flat, rather heavier than one man could well carry. This inclosure 

 was entirely at one side of the center of the mound." The inclosure 

 was about 10 feet square and within it were human remains. (Pratt, 

 (l),pp. 354-361.) 



All stone inclosures were not rectangular as were the two examples 

 just described. Some were circular or oval in outline, and some of 

 these were so formed as to converge near the top. Mounds of this 

 nature are said to be quite numerous in Cass County, Illinois, where 

 they occupy the sunmiits of bluffs overlooking the Sangamon. 

 " Rarely exceeding eight or ten feet in height by twenty to thirty in 

 diameter, and more frequently met of much smaller dimensions. The 

 mode of inhumation in mounds of this kind consisted in placing the 

 body or bodies (for they contain from one to six or eight each) of 

 the deceased upon the ground in a sitting or squatting posture, with 

 the face to the east, and inclosing them with a rudely-constructed 

 circular wall of rough, undressed stones, which was gradually con- 

 tracted at the top, and finally covered over with a single broad stone 

 slab, over all of which the earth was heaped." Implements of bone, 

 a few flint implements, and fragments of pottery of a poor quality 

 are found in these burials. " I would conclude that the class of earth- 

 w^orks under consideration were very old were it not for the singular 

 fact that in one of them, a few years ago, the decayed bones of a 

 single individual were found, with a few flint arrow points, a small 

 earthen cup or vase, and a iron gun-barrel very much corroded." 

 (Snyder, (1), p. 572.) 



The discovery of the gun barrel in one of the mounds proves the 

 latter to have been reared within two and one half centuries, un- 

 doubtedly since the middle of the seventeenth century. Evidently 

 the region was at one time comparatively thickly peopled. On the 

 d'Anville map, published in 1755, the Sangamon appears as the 

 Emicouen R. On the left bank of the stream, some 35 miles above 

 its junction with the Illinois, is indicated the site of the Ancien 

 village dcs MetcMgamias. The Michigamea was a tribe of the Illinois 

 confederacy, and were first visited by Marquette when he descended 

 the Mississippi in 1673. At that time their village was on the west 



