194 KANSAS CITY PREHISTORIC REMAINS 



the present surface, near the intersection of Missouri avenue and Troost 

 avenue in Kansas City, and about twelve hundred feet from the ancient 

 shore line of a former lake, of which I shall hereafter have occasion to 

 speak. Its position was such as to leave no doubt that it must have been 

 deposited where I found it at the time the Bluff formation was yet going on, 

 and probably about its close in this locality. 



As chert, this fragment has a long and interesting history to those who 

 •can trace its various transmutations down through innumerable ages in the 

 past. But, what will claim our attention this evening is its connection with 

 the history of man. You will perceive that it has been fashioned by the 

 hand of man into a spear head, or arrow head, for use in war and the chase, 

 and aifords unmistakable evidence of former association with him, evidence 

 which it has faithfully preserved through vast ages and now presents to 

 us, with all the truthfulness in detail as when it first received man's impress 

 upon it. It stands before us now, a mute, unerring witness of man's great 

 antiquity. 



To approximate the time of its association with our race, which gives to 

 it its great interest, we must consider the age of the formation in which it 

 was found imbedded. Some of you, no doubt, will remember that excava- 

 tions were made in the bed of the Missouri river for the purpose of obtain- 

 ing a solid foundation for the piers of the railroad bridge erected across it 

 at this place. Solid rock was not reached at the fifth pier from the lef: bank 

 until the excavation had attained a depth of sixty-eight feet below the present 

 river bed. From the fifth pier north solid rock was not reached at a greater 

 depth than that here indicated, and the piers rest upon piles driven into the 

 drift. From the fifth pier southward there Ih a gradual upward slope of the 

 rocks to the southern shore line, where they are exposed above the surface in 

 the south bank of the river. This rock formed theold bed of the river, which, 

 sloping downward toward the north bank, is at an unknown depth lower 

 than the present bed. 



At this time it is probable that the Kansas river had its outlet into the 

 Missouri at or near the present mouth of the Big Blue river; its channel 

 then passing along the McGee creek valley, in the south part of the city, 

 by way of Judge Carey's, thence along Goose Neck creek valley to the pres- 

 ent channel of the Big Blue, not far above where it empties in to the Mis- 

 souri. 



I was informed by Gov. W. P. Hall, of St. Joseph, several years ago, 

 that in the excavations made for the piers of the railroad bridge across the 

 Missouri at that place, large boulders, worn pebbles, sand, and other drift ma- 

 terial were encountered, forming the entire matter excavated down to the 

 solid rock which marks the old bed of the river at that place. The same 

 is true of the excavations made here; boulders, worn pebbles, sand, and drift 

 material were found in the excavations made, reaching down entirely to the 

 rock forming the old river bed. Our present river channel, at this place, 

 occupies a position over the south edge, or slope, of the old and now buried 



