250 IB. SHIMEK NEBRASKA "lOESS MAn'^ 



more compact texture, fewer nodules and roots, and total absence of lob- 

 bies, flint chips, and fragments of mussel shells, to say nothing of human 

 bones, the inaterial differs unquestionably from that found in the pit. 

 The latter is certainly not undisturbed loess. 



S. BURIED SOIL 



Additional convincing evidence of the correctness of the foregoing con- 

 clusion is furnished by the third layer, lying at a depth of 7% to 8% feet 

 below the surface and blending with the layers above and below. This 

 is shown as a dark band between the six markers in figure 1, plate 15. 

 It is a band of loose dark material, much like the topmost soil, and it is 

 evidently a buried soil. In it the writer found a flint chip and a few 

 shells of Succinea ovalis. This band is approximately at a level with the 

 top of the bank at the road 50 feet east. Its depth, 7V2 to 8% feet, is 

 not unusual for ordinary mounds. It is evident that the base of this 

 band marks the downward limit of the disturbance of the soil in the 

 earlier sepulture. 



Professor Barbour evidently attached much importance to the presence 

 of the lime nodules as characteristic of loess, but as a matter of fact they 

 are often found in drift and other loose deposits and the writer has seen 

 them fully an inch in diameter clustering about living roots in loess ! 



4. TYPICAL LOESS 



Below the buried soil lies typical loess, its uppermost 2 feet somewhat 

 discolored, as if it had once served as a subsoil or as if the change in color 

 was due to percolation from above. The lower limit of this discolored 

 band is shown by the single marker in plate 15, figure 1. This loess is 

 close-grained, easily cut through, compact, yellow, with bluish gray lines 

 and streaks, especially in its lower part, fossiliferous, with occasional iron 

 tubules, and showing the characteristic laminated structure when broken 

 vertically. Unlike the upper disturbed layer it contains few but larger 

 and round nodules of calcium carbonate. The shells are all terrestrial 

 and are chiefly Succinea ovalis. 



The boring in the bottom of the pit revealed the same sti-ucture to a 

 depth of nearly 311/2 feet from the surface, the last few inches being 

 harder and more mucky, suggesting that the base of the loess is not far 

 below. A lack of tubing prevented deeper boring. 



Professor Barl)our rejjorts- the finding of scattered fragments of bone 

 even in this layer to a depth of 11^ or 12 feet, but the writer failed to 

 find any such fragments after many hours of careful search and digging, 

 in which he was assisted by Mr L. Buresh, a student of the Omaha Higli 

 School. There were a few flat chip-like lime nodules, apparently formed 



