HUMAN REMAINS IN THE LOESS OF THE MISSOURI RIVER. 463 



natural surface. This, too, was found in a brick yard, and in digging clay for 

 iDrick-making. I saw and conversed with the gentleman who found and removed 

 the vessel from the clay, and was shown the position where it was found, and I 

 entirely concur in the opinion of the gentlemen of that place, who are conversant 

 with the facts, that the vase must have been covered in by the lake deposits of 

 the Champlain epoch. 



Dr. Parr, of Weston, Missouri, opened a mound on the summit of the bluffs 

 near that place, in which he found an antique vase of the basket type of pottery 

 and containing within it fish-bones and shell beads. The Doctor was so good as 

 to present to the Institute some of the beads and fish vertebrae, which are now in 

 its collection in this city. 



The chief importance to be attached to Dr. Parr's find is in the contents of 

 the vase. It has been the custom of barbarous and semi-barbarous people to 

 make provision for the subsistence of their departed friends on their supposed 

 long journey to the spirit land. The food provided is that which the people ha- 

 bitually use, and such a people invariably use the food which is most accessible 

 to them. Hence, our modern tribes, who inhabited fertile districts, such as Mis- 

 souri and Kansas, subsisted almost entirely upon terrestrial animals, because such 

 food was more accessible to them than any other ; and they would never have thought 

 of sustaining a departed friend on fish to the land of spirits. But at the close of 

 the Loess deposit, prior thereto, and for a considerable time after its completion, 

 conditions were different and fish must have been more abundant and more ac- 

 cessible than terrestrial animals, hence the subsistence provided for the tenant of 

 the Weston mound for his sustenance to the mystic land. If it is true that these 

 bones were deposited pending the Loess formation, and it seems difficult to es- 

 cape this conclusion, a hundred centuries would be a low estimate for their pro- 

 found and mysterious slumber. 



The Loess deposit of Missouri and Kansas rests immediately on the glacial 

 drift, nothing whatever intervening between them, so the Loess must have follow- 

 ed the drift in immediate succession. 



The same glacial forces which caused the filling up of the old channel of the 

 Niagara River, producing obstructions which diverted its course and forced it to 

 cut a new one, and in this work to carve out that world's wonder the " Niagara 

 Falls," operated here to produce, and leave as a monument of its power, our 

 drift, and to fill the channel of the Missouri River some hundreds of feet, and, 

 perhaps, actually to divert, or partially divert, it in some places. 



Since its diversion, the Niagara River has cut its new channel back for a dis- 

 ance of seven miles. This work has required more than 36,000 years, according 

 to the estimates of Professor Hall and the late Professor Lyell, which Pro- 

 fessor Dana thinks very low. 



As the Loess deposit rests upon and immediately succeeds the glacial drift 

 here, 26,000 years would be a very large estimate of the time intervening be- 

 tween the close of the glacial epoch and the filling of the old Champlain lake 

 to the level of where the human remains were found in the Underwood brick. 



