304 ANTIQUITIES OF THE ST. FRANCIS, WHITE, 
On the western edge of this great mound, on the river bank, is a mound 20 
feet in height, on which, doubtless, dwelt the chief who ruled over the great settle- 
ment. The diameter of this domiciliary mound was not taken by us, as the base 
had been greatly impaired in places by the cutting through of a road, and in other 
parts by the wash of the river. 
There are many accounts of discoveries in the Parkin Mound, of earthenware 
of fantastic forms, and tales related by some of the inhabitants of Parkin descrip- 
tive of the pottery found there, show what the Caucasian imagination can do when 
working in conjunction with that of the African. 
No doubt this great site, in times gone by, has yielded vast quantities of pot- 
tery, but unquestionably in this site, as in all the other sites on St. Francis river, 
earthenware of novel designs formed a very small proportion of what was taken 
from the place. 
Much of the work at Parkin, as elsewhere along the St. Francis, had been 
done by the use of sounding-rods and by subsequent digging of holes of small 
diameter, down to the pottery when it was discovered. As sounding-rods are often 
halted by the baked clay of fire-places, and as rods sometimes pass completely 
through bones and earthenware vessels without meeting with sufficient resistance 
to indicate their presence, some vessels always remain in sites where search has 
depended largely on this method. This fact explains why anything was found 
by us. 
The great mound is largely covered at the present time by the small houses of 
employes of the sawmill and by the gardens and enclosures belonging to these 
houses, so there remains but comparatively little ground open to investigation. 
Nine and one-half hours digging by our force of nine men, wherever an open 
space was found on the mound, resulted in the discovery of nineteen burials, none 
more than 26 inches from the surface. 
Of these burials fifteen were of adults, three were of adolescents, and one was 
that of an infant. 
All, with three exceptions, lay extended on the back. 
One burial was flexed on the left side; another was in a squatting position, 
the trunk leaning forward, bringing the chin down to the pelvis. The form of 
burial of the infant was not determined. 
Of the nineteen burials, three had been decapitated by former diggers, while 
in two other cases skulls had been dug down to and the pottery which undoubtedly 
was with them had been removed. 
There were two aboriginal disturbances. 
Twenty-five vessels of earthenware rewarded our search, several of which lay 
apart from burials. 
Of these vessels eleven are undecorated bowls and six are bottles which 
are entirely plain. Two bowls and two bottles have shallow notches on the rim, 
and one bottle (Fig. 32) has on the body four rudely-modeled human faces in relief, 
having a seemingly undue development as to the ears. Still another bottle has six 
