540 ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS—II [ern ANN. 44 
specimens ranges from small, delicately chipped arrow-points equal 
in symmetry and finish to those made of agate or chalcedony, 
through every gradation to rough, unsymmetrical implements suitable 
only for club-heads or agricultural tools, and not susceptible of 
further reduction. 
This is the quarry of which the following description was sent to 
the Bureau of American Ethnology: 
At Golden Grove, Barton Co., Mo., are workings, attributed to De Soto, which 
originally covered several hundred acres, with digging of shafts 40 or more 
feet, and drifts in the hillside. The mining operations appear to have been in 
very extensive beds of excellent and very refractory flint. 
The informant evidently believed what he said, but he was not 
aware that the “shafts” and “ drifts,” of which there are several, are 
the work of foolish white men seeking the “silver” which they are 
convinced was found here by De Soto who “dug all these old mines.” 
The locality is known as “Golden Grove” from a former owner, 
Golden, who left the trees forming the “grove” because the land 
was not worth clearing; but the present inhabitants are satisfied that 
the name “Golden” means hidden treasure. They have dug deep 
shafts and long trenches in search of it. 
A mile west and 2 miles north of this site is another aboriginal 
quarry, dug along the foot of a hillside. There are only a few small 
shallow pits; a hundred cubic yards of earth would fill all of them. 
Some flakes were found of smooth, semitranslucent chert, which is 
readily converted into well-finished small points. The site is so 
densely overgrown that a satisfactory examination could not be made. 
Three miles directly south of Lamar are eight house mounds on 
ground which has never been plowed. They are from 18 inches to 
3 feet high. The surface around them is low, swampy, and contains 
numerous crawfish tubes. Muddy Creek flows near them; and prob- 
ably there was ample drainage formerly through a little “ wet 
weather stream ” which comes down from the low hill near by. The 
mouth of this is now filled with sediment deposited by floods in the 
larger creek, so that water which would otherwise have a free outlet 
is compelled to accumulate and stand until it can soak away. ‘The 
mounds would not be built under present conditions. 
Three miles south of these mounds are three other similar ones 
on the bank of a little run which is now beginning to encroach on 
them. 
No other mounds of this type are reported north of the Arkansas 
line in this part of Missouri; but along the St. Louis-San Francisco 
Railway, between Bolivar and Springfield, were noticed occasionally, 
from the train, some elevations which seem to be house mounds. 
It is not safe to assert that they are such until a closer inspection is 
made. 
