THOMAS. } MOUNDS OF CLARKE COUNTY, MISSOURI. 43 
instead of circular, the sides of the latter being equal to the diameter of 
the former. In these only small fragments of bone could be found. 
Although Messrs. Hardy and Scheetz evidently considered these stone 
structures as receptacles for the dead, and as erected for this purpose, 
yet it is possible they may have been intended for some other use. 
The mounds of Pike 
County are chiefly of mixed 
material similar to those 
mentioned,! though some 
of them contain rectangu- 
jar stone vaults. One of 
these vaults, measuring 4 
by 5 feet, was found to con- 
tain the remains of eight 
skeletons. Another, areg- 
ular box-shaped cist of stone 
slabs, contained nothing 
save a few cranial bones 
very much decayed. An- 
other of large size contained 
human remains with which 
were some arrow-heads, a 
vessel of clay, and a carved 
steatite pipe, having upon 
its front a figure-head. 
I have given these par- 
ticulars in order to show 
how closely they agree with 
the discoveries made by the 
Bureau assistant in this 
region, from whose notes I 
take the following descrip- 
tion: 
Between Fox River and 
Sugar Creek, in Clarke 
County, a sharp dividing 
ridge about 100 feet high 
extends in a northerly di- 
rection for nearly two miles 
from where these streams 
enter upon the open bottom 
of the Mississippi. Scat- 
tered irregularly along the 
erest of this ridge is a line 
of cireular mounds shown in Fig. 18. These range in size from 15 
to 50 feet in diameter and from 2 to 6 feet high, and are circular in 


“OL 
hnossryy ‘Agunog ox1e[O ‘spunowm jo dnory — "gt 





: Smithsonian Report 1851, p- 537. 
