32 ABORIGINAL SITES IN LOUISIANA AND IN ARKANSAS. 
upon it and is constantly subjected to the going and coming of persons and of 
stock. There is also, beyond these mounds but in sight from them, another one 
3 or 4 feet high and possibly 50 feet in diameter. Into this mound, Mr. Wiley 
informed us, he had dug centrally a considerable excavation without finding 
anything. The mound, upon inspection, proved to be of raw clay. 
According to Mr. Wiley, but one of the three low, flat mounds contains burials, 
so far as his experience goes. While conversing with us Mr. Wiley removed from 
this mound, with à knife, a human femur, which lay partly exposed on the surface. 
Some years ago, Mr. Wiley explained, a member of the faculty of a college in 
New Orleans had dug extensively into this mound, finding pottery and two 
undecorated pipes of earthenware, evidently of the biconical kind, according to 
Mr. Wiley’s description. 
Mr. Wiley informed us that aboriginal relics were constantly being un- 
earthed at the place during his cultivation of the fields, but none presented any 
feature of especial interest, according to the descriptions furnished by him. 
In Mr. Wiley’s possession were: a number of small, barbed arrowpoints of 
flint; an earthenware vessel representing a frog, from which parts were missing; 
a charm-stone, elongated ovoid in shape, made from a pebble, bearing a groove 
to facilitate suspension;.a discoidal bead wrought from part of a shell, the thick- 
ness suggesting marine origin; three or four small stone hatchets. 
The effigy-vessel, through the base of which a ceremonial hole had been 
broken, was rudely made and inferior to many vessels of the same class from 
other localities. ( 
As the lake had covered Mr. Wiley's property in the great flood of the 
preceding year, and as the water, which was again rising was not far from his 
home at the time of our visit, Mr. Wiley was unwilling to have digging attempted 
in the mounds on which his buildings were, and, under the circumstances, we 
cannot see how his decision could have been otherwise. 
TENSAS RIVER, LOUISIANA. 
Tensas river has its source in Lake Providence, in the northeastern part of 
that portion of Louisiana which lies west of Mississippi river, and keeps a 
southerly eourse in the main until, at the town of Jonesville, La., it joins 
Ouachita and Little rivers, the three forming Black river, which continues to its 
junetion with Red river. 
Tensas river is considered navigable to a settlement called Westwood, 81 
miles by water from the union of the three rivers, but the stream was searched 
by our agents from the town of Quebec down, a much greater distance. 
The Tensas was investigated by us up to Indian bayou, about 22 miles by 
water above Westwood, by dint of felling projecting trees which barred the 
passage of the narrow stream, and by lopping off interfering boughs. The 
river could have been explored considerably farther in the high water prevailing 
