18 THE MISSO URI MO UND B UILDERS. 



low order of intelligence and very great muscular development. Drs. Hal- 

 ley and Fee, from measurements made by the former, of the femur, think the 

 individual to whom it belonged must have been as much as seven feet five 

 inches in stature. A creature of this commanding height, supported by 

 such vast muscular development, with a low and rapidly retreating fore- 

 head, and a very prominent supra-orbital development, over-arching, wild, 

 restless eyes, the wild, restless, fierce expression of which was heightened 

 by constant watching for lurking foes, must have formed an object fearful 

 to look upon — a savage which the wildest dream of the imagination can 

 scarcely picture. 



Mound number five contained a stone chamber eight and a half by eight 

 and a half feet internal Jinear surface, and four feet in vertical height, with 

 a doorway in the centre of the south wall two and a half feet wide. Like 

 number two, it contained a large quantity of burnt human and animal 

 bones, burnt clay, wood ashes and charred wood, all intermingled and ex- 

 tending entirely over the floor, at irregular depths. In the centre of the 

 chamber this mingled ash-heap was not less than eight inches in thickness. 

 Beneath it, and almost, and perhaps in places, entirely in contact with it, 

 buried in the clay, and resting on the natural surface at the plane of the 

 base of the wall, parts of four skeletons were found, but none of them suf- 

 ficiently preserved to give their outline. Three frontal and the fragments 

 of two maxillary bones were sufficiently intact, however, to indicate very 

 clearly that they belong to the same race of those in number one. 



The mounds opened all rest upon the undisturbed natural surface. This 

 was singularly illustrated in mound nu.mber five, in which the root of a tree 

 growing on it had penetrated the mound, vertically, until reaching the nat- 

 ural surface at the base, where, rejecting the natural formation and select- 

 ing the more nutritious, disturbed earth, grew away at right angles across 

 the base of the mound, resting horizontally on the natural surface, afl'ord- 

 ing a very suggestive hint to agriculturists. The entire absence of imple- 

 ments in any one of the mounds opened, unless I may except four flint 

 flakes found in number four, which, most probably, were thrown in by acci- 

 dent when the mound was erected, is a matter of surprise to me, and one 

 in which I must confess great disappointment; but other mounds, when 

 opened, may yield diff'erent results. 



I stated in my September paper, that the last level of the lake in which 

 the loess deposit took place extended some way up Line Creek. I am 

 strengthened in this opinion by the terrace markings which I find along 

 the bluffs oij the north side of the river. I find additional evidence, too, to 

 confirm the opinion which I then expressed, that the spear-head found at 

 the junction of Missouri and Troost Avenues, in this city, was deposited 

 where found while the loess deposit was yet going on. We must not infer 

 from the absence of implements in the mounds that none were used by the 

 race that erected them, for within a distance varying from one-half mile to 

 a mile from them, large quantities of flint arrow and spearheads, stone 



