INTUODCrTOHV. 11 



together with these rehcs heaps of earth a foot or two 

 high and perhaps a rod wide. These vihage sites, as 

 they have been called, do not or-eupy any conspicuously 

 high places, but usually lie on or near some flat and 

 fertile lowlands as on the border of an alluvial jjlain. 

 The burial mounds are different. They are higher and 

 somewhat less flat on top. Frequently there is a pile 

 or a. layer of rocks within them, and under this, some 

 human remains. They are usually' built on high bluffs 

 or on upland hills overlooking some extensive lowlands. 

 They can almost always be found on bluffs near the 

 junction of larger streams and their size is somewhat 

 proportionate to that of the confluent waters. Mounds 

 of this kind have been reported from near the mouth of 

 the Kansas,* near the junction of the Big Blue and the 

 Kansas, and near the junction of the Kepublican and 

 the Smoky Hill. ** The author has seen some along 

 the Smoker Hill river west of the latter locality and on 

 several of the high buttes in Saline and McPherson 

 counties, and he has opened- two in the latter county. 

 One of these is on the summit of the highest butte of 

 the Smoky Hills and the other is west of Gypsum creek 

 near the northeast corner of McPherson county. Both 

 mounds were partly built of rocks, under which there 

 were charred human bones and some roughly chipped 

 flints. In the present state of our knowledge of the 

 antiquities of Kansas we are hardly justified in making 

 any conjectures as to whether these two types of mounds 



* Traces of the Aborigines ia Riley County. Prof. 0. H. Faiiyer. Trans, of 

 the Kansas Acad, of Sci., 1879—1880, p. 132. 



** Kansas Mounds, F. G. Adams. Trans, of the Kansas Acad, of Sci., 1877 

 —1878, p. 51. 



