584 SOME ABORIGINAL SITES ON RED RIVER. 
MOUNDS oN THE FRIDAY PLACE, LAFAYETTE COUNTY, ARK. 
The Friday Place is another of the plantations on Red river so courteously 
placed at the disposal of the Academy for investigation, by Mr. Henry Moore, Jr., 
of Texarkana, Ark. Our search at the Friday Place was made under unfavorable 
conditions. Red river was in flood and had gone over its banks in places. It was 
necessary for us to visit the mounds on this place in boats, the water extending to 
the very bases of the mounds and oozing through the mounds themselves, filling 
with water the lower parts of excavations of any depth. 
MOUND A. 
In sight from the river bank, on the border of woods, is a beautifully-sym- 
metrical mound of circular outline, 70 feet in basal diameter. Its height is 7.5 
feet. A causeway joins the mound on the southern side at a level of about one-half 
its height. In this causeway was an oval space appearing as if it had been dug 
out, though no evidence of material obtained from it was in sight. As we have 
noticed similar depressions in other aboriginal causeways, we are inclined to believe 
they were made intentionally by the aborigines for a reason of which we are ignorant. 
Ten trial-holes, many of which were greatly enlarged, were put down from the 
summit-plateau of Mound A. Those in the western half of the mound came upon 
a fire-place which proved to be about 16 feet by 21 feet in extent. This fire-place, 
which had a maximum thickness of 1.5 foot, was 6.5 feet (measured from the under 
surface) below the summit-plateau. 
The fire-place was worked by our diggers throughout its extent, with the 
exception of a comparatively small part below a large tree on the center of the 
mound, where, however, possibly a pit may have been. Our digging, which was 
carried to a depth of about 8.5 feet, came upon no indication of a pit elsewhere in 
the mound. 
Below the fire-place, that is, 6.5 feet down, there seemed to be an unbroken 
base-line, though from the height of the mound one would expect such a line at a 
somewhat greater depth. This base-line was much less distinctly marked in the 
eastern part of the mound, where the fire-place did not extend. It seemed possible 
to us that the infiltration of water through burnt material may have accentuated 
the color of the basal line, which lay beneath the fire-place. | 
Our trial-holes, passing through this base-line, went several feet imto seemingly 
undisturbed material, river sand and fine gravel in places, the mound itself being 
composed of a mixture of clay and sand, the sand preponderating. 
Nothing but the demolition of the mound could answer the question as to its 
former use, but this method of inquiry in this region, and especially at a time when 
horses and mules were taking refuge on the mound, was entirely out of the question. 
Mousxp В. 
This mound, in sight іп a northerly direetion from Mound А, was small and 
so surrounded by water that its investigation was not practicable. 
