14 STRUCTURE OF THE MOUNDS. 



STRUCTURE OF THE MOUNDS. 



Each mound is circular in form and has a diameter 

 of from twenty to twenty-live feet. None are more than 

 three feet high. The average lieiglit is somewhat less 

 than two feet, and some rise only slightly above the 

 ground. The material of which these mounds are com- 

 posed is principally loose soil or mud, which is heaped 

 up on the surface of the prairie. On digging down the 

 material was found to be soft until the original prairie 

 level was reached, when the ground became hard. Below 

 this it had apparently never been disturbed. Through 

 the upper loose soil there were all sorts of relics, mostly 

 broken. There were also broken bones of animals, 

 pieces of pottery, here and there bits of charcoal, pock- 

 ets of ashes, flint chips, various kinds of arrowpoints, 

 scrapers, a,nd knives of flint. Occasionally small blocks 

 of sandstone or limestone were met with, which had 

 been subjected to the action of fire. It was not possible 

 to detect any order in the arrangement of the contents 

 of the mounds a;nd there were no buried human remains. 

 Just how the mounds were built seems uncertain. The 

 mud perhaps accumulated inside the dwellings during 

 a repeated residence of the natives, which occurred at 

 some certain season of the year. All the materials 

 found imbedded, were such household goods as may be 

 supposed to have become useless to the inhabitants, or 

 such as may from time to time have been lost. Most 

 of them were broken. The pockets of ashes occasionally 

 found may mark the site of the places where fires were 



