KANSAS CITY PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 199 



This latter class, or the material from which they have been made must have 

 been transported from distant localities. There is jet another difference, 

 that while the flint chippings and stone implements, including stone axes, 

 have a wide range in this and the adjoining counties, buried at various 

 depths near the surface, I am not aware that "prehistoric pottery" has been 

 found except at this place, and in one place near the fair ground in Wj^an- 

 dotte county, Kansas. I am indebted to Mr. Winner, the efficient secretary 

 of this academy, for information of this latter j)lace. In company with 

 him I recently made some researches there which resulted in our finding sev- 

 eral fragments of pottery, in every way similar to that found in this county,, 

 which were, no doubt, deposited about the same time and by the same race 

 of people. This latter array of specimens I also present for your examina- 

 tion. The earliest of the deposits, including the fragments of pottery and 

 Home stone axes of the neolithic type, may have been made soon after, or 

 perhaps before, the completion of the bluff deposit. They are found resting 

 almost, if not entirely, in contact with the upper surface of the Bluff deposit 

 and imbedded in, or just beneath, the base of the vegetable mould over- 

 lying it. You will perceive from these fragments that there was at least 

 two styles in construction, and as many as four different styles of ornamen- 

 tation in the manufacture of the vessels of which these fragments are but 

 the broken remains. One style of construction has a plain vertical rim at 

 top about one inch in perpendicular height, from the base of which the bowl 

 or body of the vessel gradually swells out in a convex form, terminating in 

 an oval, diminishing downward, and perhaps slightly flattened at the base. 

 The other style has simply a thickening or swelling out of the rim at top, 

 and the bowl of the vessel is less convex than in the other. The ornamen- 

 tation consists of indentations and punctures of various kinds upon the rim 

 or around the base of the rim of the latter class ; or it consists of engrav- 

 ings, traced before the hardening of the vessel, upon the outer surface, per- 

 haps in imitation of a tree or plant. The vessels, judging from the curve of 

 the broken pieces, would vary from one pint to several gallons in capacity. 



The specimens I have described were found on a gradual slope of land, 

 with but little elevation, reaching back from Jersey creek northwest, in 

 Wyandotte county, and on a slope equall}^, but slightly, elevated, reaching 

 back northwest from a branch of McGee creek, in this county. 



So far as I know, artificial mounds have not been found in this vicinity, 

 but farther investigation may disclose them.=^ In the meantime, with the 

 evidence before us, we are not justified in assuming that the race that used 

 and was associated with this pottery, was numerous or had a long existence 

 here, for these relics are found, so far as I know, but at the two places indi- 

 cated, and there confined to but very inconsiderable areas. * >i« >1< 



* Since this paper was read, numerous mounds have been found in the vicinity of Kansas City, some 

 of which have betn described by Judge West. 



