THE MOUND BUILDEBS IN MISSOURI. ' 531 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS IN MISSOURI* 

 BY H. N, RUST, CHICAGO. 



The wide extent of country in which the mound-builders' relics of Mis- 

 souri have been found forbid detailed account of each locality. The prin- 

 cipal discoveries have been made in Scott and Mississippi counties, and 

 vrithin about twenty miles of Charleston. The first considerable discovery 

 was early last season, in a dense cypress swamp known as Northcot's swamp, 

 six miles west of Charleston. It is a part of that low. country lying between 

 Cape Girardeau and New Madrid, and which was parti}' submerged by the 

 earthquake of 1811. The swamp is from one to one and one-half miles 

 wide and covered with a heavy growth of timber, mostlj' cjq^ress. There are 

 patches of sandy land in this swamp upon which I am told there are many 

 mounds, some of which are fifty feet high : but it is very ditHcult to reach 

 them except when the swamp is frozen. 



I have never seen a more undesirable place occupied bj- mankind. On 

 one of the tracts of sand land we found a cleared field of about 40 acres. 

 This field is partly surrounded by a ditch 12 to 18 inches deej), the earth 

 which was thrown out of it forming a corresponding embankment. Within 

 this area are two large mounds, the one a truncated pyramid, about fifteen 

 feet high and 75 feet in its longest diameter. This was cleared of timber 

 about forty years ago, and having been ploughed and cultivated since, has 

 been much reduced in its height and shape. On this mound we tound beds 

 of ashes, a few flint chips and arrow heads and many fragments of potter3^ 

 Seventy-five feet westerly from this mound is a large grave : 100 feet east- 

 erly was found still another, both in the level plain. About 75 feet south 

 of this mound is a small pond of water, perhaps 60 feet in diameter and 

 very near ("'ircular in form. Here, I imagine the earth was taken out to 

 build the next mound, which is sixty feet southeast of the pond, and is con- 

 ical in form, 15 feet high and about 40 feet in diameter. 



An examination of both these mounds failed to discover any thing of in- 

 terest. Upon the last mentioned mound stands an oak tree which measured 

 3^ feet in diameter. This and other trees of corresponding size standing 

 upon the graves in the level plain are the most positive evidences I could 

 gather of the antiquity of these graves. About 50 feet east of the last 

 mentioned mound in the level plain was discovered the first grave in this 

 field. Here within a circle, the diameter of which is 75 feet, was found sev- 

 eral hundred skeletons and a great variety of pottery, with comparatively 

 few stone imj^lements. 



•■■ Read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sept. 4, 1877. 



