970 Traces of Prehistoric Man on the Wabash. (October, 
of the highest bottom land, though this is about seven feet below 
‘the highest floods, such as occurred in the summer of 1875 and 
winter of 1883. There is one very high bottom about four and a 
half miles south of the mouth of Raccoon creek, locally known 
as Blue Grass landing. Forty to fifty years ago this place was well 
known to flat and steamboat men. The Wabash was then the 
great commercial thoroughfare for all this country, and this being 
a good landing, backed by good farms near by, and covered with 
the heavy, green carpet of blue grass (Poa pratensis), was also 
one of the most beautiful spots on the river. Here it was, ac- 
cording to Dr. Collett, State geologist, report of 1879, that the 
Kentucky soldiers of Harrison’s army, while marching from Fort 
Harrison to Tippecanoe to fight the Indians there, found the 
original Kentucky blue grass, and on their return gathered and 
carried home the seed, which is now an important article of Ken- 
tucky commerce. 
The old settlers had a tradition that this spot (a quarter of a 
mile long up and down the river) was an ancient Indian camping 
ground. What reasons they had for so believing I never learned. 
But during my frequent surveys and inspections of the work be- 
fore mentioned, I had abundant reason to know that such was the 
fact. The surface of the ground, however, indicates nothing of 
the kind. The place is not overflowed more than once in seven 
years on the average. The bottoms are over a mile wide, and 
much the lowest back next the hills. The few floods that have 
overflowed this high bank during recent years (I mean histori- 
cally recent, not geologically) have flowed nearly square across 
it, and since ‘the timber has been cut away, has washed small 
channels from four to ten feet deep toward the eastern hills. These 
channels are deepest next to the river, growing shallower till 
they disappear at distances from one-quarter to three-quarters of 
a mile from the river. In the bottom of these channels Mr. Sam- 
uel D. Hill, drainage commissioner of the county, was the first to 
~ Observe little heaps composed of stones about the size of apples 
| Or potatoes, and about a bushel in quantity. They were in the 
more recently cut channels, the current being sufficient to remove 
_ the bottom earth but not enough to disturb the order of the 
stones. I said the stones were in heaps; this is not quite cor- 
rect. They were about three layers deep and two and a half to 
three Jide half feet wide, and slightly oval in shape. They were 
