530 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Stone implements and broken pottery are found in the vicinity of all of them, 

 especially in plowed fields, worn roads, and washes. Few of them have the ap- 

 pearance of having been opened or disturbed in any way. I ascended the bluffs 

 in more than fifty places on my way down, and invariably found mounds ; but in 

 consequence of the almost incessant rains I was unable to open any of them west 

 of this place. But for the past few days the weather has been more favorable for 

 my work, and it is fortunate that the favorable weather conspires with a rich field 

 for investigation. In the vicinity of Miami is one of the most interesting fields to 

 the archaeologist to be found in the State. In its vicinity events of the most 

 thrilling interest occurred, associated with an extinct race, whose very existence 

 would be unknown but for the silent monuments fashioned by it, and which it 

 has left behind, of earth and stone, in the greatest profusion. Here, in addition 

 to the mounds strewn all along the river above, there are other mounds of a dif- 

 ferent character." 



After an elaborate description of the country about the Pinnacles, in the 

 same article, Judge West continues: "The Backbone continues very narrow, 

 indented with deep ravines on either side, back for the distance of about a mile, 

 where it sends off a spur to the south and begins to widen and swells out into a 

 very high and gently undulating plane stretching away for miles across the coun- 

 try. The spur, like the Backbone, terminates at the valley in a very sharp and 

 abrupt point elevated some two hundred feet above it and is too steep for ascent. 

 It continues very narrow back for about a quarter of a mile, where it widens out 

 to two or three hundred feet, at the summit, and continues back about this width 

 for another quarter of a mile, where it begins to widen and gradually widens back 

 to its intersection with the Backbone, at a distance of about another half mile. 



" On this spur, about a quarter of a mile back from its terminus on the river 

 valley, stands a wonderful work, known as the "Old Fort." It consists of in- 

 trenchments thrown up on the verge of the summit of the ridge on both sides. 

 The intrenchraents are still from two to three feet deep, and are on either side 

 one thousand one hundred feet in length measuring through the centre from end to 

 end, and inclose an area from two hundred to three hundred feet wide, the trenches 

 following the curvature of the summit of the ridge. At the sides there is but a 

 single trench, but at each end there is a double defense closing the trenches ex- 

 cept leaving a pass-way about fifteen feet wide. Near the centre of the work a 

 single trench is thrown up connecting with the main trench on either side, with 

 a pass-way in the centre of the same width as those at the ends. There are four 

 small mounds in the works, which were opened last summer by Mr. Middleton, 

 of Kansas City. Two of the mounds stand at the north entrance and to the 

 right of the pass-way as you approach from the north, and two of them are near 

 the centre cross intrenchments to the left of the pass-way as you approach from 

 the same direction. Mr. Middleton found human bones, broken pottery, and 

 flint chippings in the mounds. The bones were very much decayed. The pot- 

 tery is precisely the same as that found in the fields in the vicinity. The trees 

 growing in the intrenchments are of the same age as those in the adjacent forest. 



