16 THE MISSO URI MO UKD B UILDERS. 



The chambers, as far as opened, are nearly uniform in size and construc- 

 tion, being eight and one-half by eight and one-half feet, with the excep- 

 tion of one, which is seven and one-half by eight feet, internal linear sur- 

 face, and are from three and one-half to four feet in vertical height. In the 

 center of the south wall of each chamber is an opening, or doorway, two 

 and one-half feet wide. They are situated due north and south, with one 

 exception, which varies but ten degrees from a north and south line. The 

 walls are about eighteen inches in thickness at the summit, and slope out- 

 ward and downward to about five feet at the base, at the medial line of the 

 square. 



Assisted by Drs. Fee, Halley and Smith, and Messrs. Winner, Lykins, 

 Child, Michener, Traber and McDonald, of the Academy, and Messrs. Evans, 

 Campbell and other gentlemen of the neighborhoq.4-, I have opened five of 

 the mounds, which are situated on the land of Mr. Peter Brenner, to whom, 

 and to Mr. Krouse and Mr. Klamm, and other gentlemen of the neighbor- 

 hood, 1 am indebted for many acts of kindness and for material assistanee 

 in the prosecution of my work. 



Those opened I have designated the five mound group. They are in 

 Platte Count}^, about sixty feet west of the line dividing that county from 

 Clay County, and are all embraced within an area of two hundred feet. I 

 have, for convenience of description, numbered them respectively from one 

 to five, beginning on the east. 



Number one, the most easterly of the group, contains a stone chamber 

 seven and a half by eight feet, internal linear surface, and three feet in per- 

 pendicular height, with a doorway two and a half feet wide in the centre 

 of the south wall. Within the chamber, and on the plane of the base of 

 the wall, five human crania and other human bones were found. Two of 

 the crania were on the west side, two on the east side, and one near the 

 centre. Those on the west lay on their sides, and near the west wall, facing 

 the wall, and facing each other, and are comparatively in a good state of 

 preservation. These two crania I have the pleasure of presenting before 

 you this evening. You will perceive that they are both of the Dolicho- 

 cephalus, or long headed type, and that the individual to whom one of 

 them belonged m.ost probably suffered a violent death, from the fact that 

 the cranium has been pierced entirely through b}^ some missile, most proba- 

 bly an arrow; \i so, the arrow-head used must have been very small, per- 

 haps one of those small implements which I have often seen, but previously" 

 supposed were made for playthings to amuse the aboriginal children, but it 

 would seem from this, that a grim, earnest purjjose prompted iheir manu- 

 facture and use. The other crania were not so well preserved, and their 

 outline could not be distinctly defined, but the frontal bone of one of them, 

 and some fragments of the maxillary bones, would indicate very clearly 

 that they belong to the same tjpe as those found on the west side. I am 

 not satisfied as to whether fire had been used in this chamber, but am in- 

 clined to think that it had been, on the east side. 



