598 CERTAIN MOUNDS ОЕ ARKANSAS AND OF MISSISSIPPI. 
in the account of our first visit to Moundville,' and that summit plateaus or parts 
of them sometimes were used for burial purposes. 
We commenced, then, to investigate the Blum group of mounds in the same 
manner as we did the mounds and cemeteries of Moundville, namely, by sinking 
trial-holes in the summit plateaus of the mounds, and in the level ground 
where appearances indicated the possible presence of a cemetery, with the 
intention, should burials be discovered, of prosecuting the search in a more 
thorough way. 
The trial-holes in the Blum mounds were intended to be 6 feet long by 3 feet 
wide and 4 feet deep, but as the material of which the mounds were made was, as 
a rule, a tenacious, alluvial deposit, dried comparatively hard and in places still 
farther hardened by fire, necessitating the use of picks and grubbing-hoes, the 
dimensions given were not always adhered to exactly. Sometimes, but not often, 
the holes exceeded the standard size. 
In the level ground the trial-holes were 6 feet by 3 feet and were usually 4 
feet deep, but sometimes when ground unmistakably undisturbed was reached, the 
holes were not carried to a full depth of 4 feet. 
We shall now state the extent of the tentative work carried on by us in con- 
nection with the Blum mounds, giving the area of each summit plateau where such 
was present. 
Mound A, summit plateau 100 feet by 132 feet, approximately, was accorded 
twelve trial-holes on the summit plateau and five at its northern corner. 
Mound B, with a summit plateau 44 feet by 60 feet, had on it a number of 
burials made in recent times, which were not disturbed by us. But five trial-holes 
were put down in this mound. | 
Mound С, with a summit plateau of irregular outline, 90 feet by 136 feet, 
received five trial-holes. 
Mound D, with an irregular, oblong plateau about 60 feet by 112 feet, was 
fairly well covered by the seven trial-holes allotted to it. In one hole, just below 
the surface, was an isolated skull badly decayed. In another were fragments of a 
skull. 
Mound E, part of which had been cut away in the making of a road, received 
one trial-hole in addition to a close examination of the section laid bare. 
Mound F, four trial-holes. A small oblate-spheroidal vessel of coarse ware 
was found near the surface. 
Mound G, five trial-holes. Lying near together in this mound were nine 
double-pointed fish-scales which Mr. H. W. Fowler, of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences, has identified as probably belonging to the alligator-gar (Leprsosteus tri- 
stechus), a fish abundant in the lower Mississippi river. 
The scales of this fish, which Du Pratz? calls potsson-armeé, are said by him 
1 <“ Certain Aboriginal Mounds of the Black Warrior River,” Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci., Vol. XIII 
р- 241 et seq. 
* Histoire de la Louisiane, Vol. II, р. 168, Paris, 1758. 
