PART E 
Sr. FRANCIS RIVER. 
St. Francis river enters the Mississippi оп the western side, about twelve miles 
above the city of Helena, Ark. 
The banks in places are fairly high and are not subject to overflow except on 
rare occasions. It is not likely that the great aboriginal sites along the river have 
suffered to any great extent through wash of water. 
The principal sites along the St. Francis, although as a rule having mounds in 
connection with them, are in reality great dwelling-sites which have increased in 
height gradually through long periods of occupancy, and the aborigines, burying 
where they lived, have formed, in course of time, great cemeteries in which burials 
lie at various depths often depending on the period in the growth of the site when 
the burial was made. 
All these burials in the various sites we believe to have been pre-Columbian,’ 
1 The reader is doubtless aware that native copper (which is not found in merchantable quantities 
in Europe), such as was used by the aborigines in the United States before the coming of Europeans, is 
far purer than is copper produced by smelting from the ores found in Europe, which are sulphide ores 
and contain many impurities that cannot be wholly eliminated in smelting. 
Three specimens of copper from burial sites in the St. Francis Valley were submitted to Dr. H. F. 
Keller, who reports as follows: 
“ Having completed the chemical examination of the materials you sent me May 21st, I would 
state my results as follows: 
“1. The copper bead marked ‘Big Eddy, with burial No. 5’ consisted of a piece of foil lapped at 
one edge and rolled into a cylinder. ри crust of carbonate, etc., was removed with acid, and the 
ield 
clean metal carefully analyzed. It yielded— 
“ о рет 
“Silver .031 
“Iron 2 
“ Lead, arsenic, antimony, and other metals were absent. There сап ђе no doubt therefore that 
the bead was made from native copper. 
. “2. The smaller bead marked ‘Mound on Rose Place, Cross County, Arkansas,’ after cleaning 
with acid, was found to contain 99.9% of copper and traces of silver and iron, but no other metallic 
impurities, 
“8. The fragments of copper marked ‘ Mounds above Turkey Island, Cross Co., Ark., with burial 
No. Зо ' were found thickly incrusted with carbonate of copper and clay. This material contains about 
80% of copper, but no trace of lead, arsenic, antimony, or other impurities characteristic of copper 
extracted from sulphide ores could be detected in it. It showed however a very marked reaction for 
silver. š 
“4. The ‘red paint” from cemetery on Cummings Place, Poinsett Co., Ark., is a clay colored red 
by an admixture of about 8% oxide of iron. 
“ ^ . ` . ` ` ` . +... 2 / 
, “5. The earthy material of very bright red color is similar in composition, but contains 13.3% 
ferric oxide, 
“The tests of the specimens of copper were made with the greatest care, and they leave no room 
for doubt that these objects were fashioned from the native metal.” 
Ve learn also by this report that the red pigments in use by the aborigines along the St. Francis 
were clays colored with red oxide of iron—a purely aboriginal product. 
