BUSHNELL] VILLAGES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 83 
or of wood dust. Sometimes bowlders lay about the remains of the 
posts, as if designed to aid in holding them in position. The grain 
of the charcoal posts indicated the wood to have been oak. About 
the posts, under the floor, and also under the platform, objects were 
more numerous than at other points in the ruin. The charred re- 
mains of four posts about eight feet. apart surrounded the central 
fireplace. There were two features of house construction that stand 
out conspicuously: (1) the floor was approximately six to eight feet 
lower than the level of the surrounding ridge; (2) the angle at which 
the slabs, logs, or paling probably leaned inward from the periphery 
seems to indicate the highest part of the roof at about the same dis- 
tance above the surrounding level as the floor was below, making the 
highest part of the roof about fifteen feet above the fireplace in the 
center of the dwelling ... Little besides broken flint instruments, 
flint chips, shells, potsherds, and fractured drift bowlders were found 
upon the floor itself; the major number of objects was beneath the 
floor surface, very often covered with bowlders, as if the latter had 
been placed to mark the spot. Small fireplaces were of frequent 
occurrence on all parts of the floor. 
“Three caches were found in the first ruin. . . In one, fifteen feet 
west of the center of the dwelling were found flint blades, a score 
of Unio shells, a mano or muller made from a rounded drift 
bowlder .. . and a pottery pipe in form of a soaring bird... 
The bottom of this cache was six feet from the surface. The second 
cache lay at the southeastern side of the ruin. Its bottom was eight 
feet from the surface of the ground. It contained thirty shells, sev- 
eral large flint blades, other large flint implements of unknown 
use .. . animal bones, projectile points, and a small piece of galena. 
The third cache, in the northeastern part of the ruin, was the largest 
and deepest of the three, its bottom being nine feet and a half from 
the surface. On a small shelf, or niche, at its eastern side, two feet 
from the bottom, lay a small image of a human face carved from 
pink soapstone, a number of animal bones and skulls, fish bones and 
scales, and Unio shells, 
“So many and varied were the objects found in the ruin, so 
abundant the charred sticks and grasses, that the impression is con- 
veyed that the dwelling had been abandoned in haste and that it 
had burned to the ground.” (Gilder, (1), pp. 58-61.) The objects 
discovered in this ancient ruin were truly varied, as the discoverer 
remarked, and likewise of the greatest interest, including specimens 
of stone, bone, and pottery, with bones of animals which had prob- 
ably served as food. But how interesting it would be to know the 
date of the construction of this large lodge, and the tribe to which 
its occupants belonged—questions which may never be determined. 
