AND BLACK RIVERS, ARKANSAS. 277 
the westward of it and in the immediate vicinity of the mound. The mound was 
formed by digging a large trench on the eastern part of the tongue of land and 
separating this tongue from the mainland on that side. There are also remains of 
a trench at the western end which cut off the tip of the tongue. The other sides 
of the mound look out upon swamp, dry at the time of our visit, which is consider- 
ably lower than was the tongue of land originally. 
The northern, eastern, southern, and western sides of the mound are in length, 
respectively, about 849 feet, 471 feet, 900 feet, and 270 feet. The eastern side 
runs almost due north and south. 
The height of the mound is difficult to determine. Its altitude on the eastern 
side, taken from the level of the ground beyond the trench, is from 3 to 6 feet. 
From the other sides, however, the height is much greater—15 feet or more in 
places, but this includes much of the original height of the tongue of land. Per- 
haps the added part may be judged from the present height as taken from the level 
ground on the eastern side, and this accretion, it is evident by the nature of the 
soil, slowly developed during a long period of occupancy. The surface of the 
mound, often to a depth of 5 feet and more, is not the alluvial soil of the surround- 
ing territory and of the lower parts of the mound, but is rich black loam containing 
midden-debris and many fireplaces which sometimes are marked by great layers of 
soil blackened by charcoal, and strata of clay burnt almost to the hardness of brick. 
Not far from the center of the mound is a conical mound about 4 feet high and 
40 feet across the base, which presumably was the site of the chief's residence. 
The entire surface of the great mound is scarred with remains of holes made 
by seekers after pottery, who have so thoroughly dug the burial places of St. Fran- 
cis river. It was difficult to find an area of even a few square feet on any part of 
the great mound, which did not show traces of the spade. 
Digging was done by us mainly and most successfully in parts of the great 
upper surface of the mound, where humps and rises above the general level indicated 
a more prolonged period of local occupancy than there had been on the flatter parts, 
though there was no portion of the mound in which we dug, level or otherwise, 
where some hole or holes did not come upon human remains. 
Some of the burials lay just below the surface, though, as the mound has been 
under cultivation, originally they probably had been at a greater depth. A few 
other burials were so much as 5 feet below the present surface. Some of these 
deeper burials had been made when the mound was lower than it is at present, as 
unbroken layers of soil, and sometimes fireplaces, lay considerably above them. 
Some deep burials, however, were clearly traceable from the present surface of the 
mound. 
Incidentally it may be said that though we carefully avoided digging where 
superficial signs of the work of others were apparent, we came upon a number of 
mutilated skeletons, parts of which had been dug out, and we found also pottery 
and bones which had been pierced by sounding-rods, but which, no doubt, had been 
in too soft a condition at the time of contact to indicate their presence. 
