Taomas.| BURIAL MOUNDS OF VERNON COUNTY, WISCONSIN. 15 
longing to the same type as those just described ; some with the exca- 
vation in the original soil in which the skeletons were deposited, though 
in others there were no such excavations, the skeletons being deposited 
on the original surface or at various depths in the mounds. I give here 
descriptions of a few of them from his notes : 
The one numbered 16, of the Courtois group, is about 20 feet in diam- 
eter, and at present scarcely more than 1 foot high, the ground having 
been in cultivation for several years and the mound considerably low- 
ered by the plow. A vertical section is given in Fig. 2, a a, indi- 

Fic. 2.—Section of burial mound, Vernon County, Wisconsin. 
cating the natural surface of the ground, b the part of the mound re- 
moved, and ¢ the original cireular excavation in the natural soil to the 
depth of 2 feet. 
Four skeletons were found in this excavation, two side by side near 
the center, with heads south, faces up, one near the north margin with 
head west, and the other on the south side with head east, all stretched 
at full length. 
In another mound of the same group with a similar excavation noth- 
ing save a single skull was found. In another of exactly the same kind 
some of the skeletons were folded, while others were extended at full 
length. 
In all these cases, and in a majority of the small burial mounds opened 
in this western part of the State, there was no stratification ; still there 
were found some exceptions to this rule. 
Vestiges of art were comparatively rare in them, yet here and there 
were found an arrow-point, a chipped flint scraper or celt—in some in- 
stances remarkably fine specimens —a few large copper gorgets, evi- 
dently hammered from native copper, copper beads, etc. Very few ves- 
sels of pottery were obtained from them, but one was discovered, shown 
in Fig. 3, which I believe is of the finest quality of this ware so far 
obtained from the mounds of the United States. There were intrusive 
burials in a few of these mounds, but these have been wholly omitted 
from consideration in the descriptions given. 
In a few instances the mounds seem to have been built solely for the 
purpose of covering a confused mass of human bones gathered together 
after the flesh had disappeared or had been removed. Similar mounds 
