1885. ] Traces of Prehistoric Man on the Wabash, 971 
underlaid with one to three inches of charcoal, and on top of the 
stones, and scattered down streamward from them, were mussel 
shells and a few bones of small animals too much decayed and 
fractured to be identified ; but the leg of a crane or pelican near 
by was so well preserved that every joint of the foot to the nail 
was in perfect shape. But on handling it soon crumbled into 
lime dust. So it was with the mussel shells, except a half shell, 
which was as fresh as if taken recently. The stones were such 
as lie at the upper end of the river bars, mostly crystalline, some 
gray, others blue. All had originally been smooth, water-worn, 
but were broken into angular fragments, segments, cubes and 
zones. I put the pieces together in several instances and with 
them completed (filled out) smooth, rounded water-worn stones. 
All had a dark smoky look as if having been burned in the fire, 
I should think that those we examined and those we saw without 
special examination would amount to seven cubic yards. One 
piece of white limestone, about the size and much the shape of a 
brick, when I touched it I found to be slaked into lime. 
The charcoal underneath the layers of stones on the coal, their 
smoky appearance, their peculiar fractures, all show that they had 
been placed on a fire. The mussel shells and bones on and near 
these stones indicate that the purpose of that fire was for cooking. 
It is very difficult to open the shells of a live mussel (Wabash 
oyster), but when baked on hot rocks they easily yield. 
I say these stones were found in heaps. Such was true of five 
separate piles or heaps, from which I infer that all the stones found 
in the largest and oldest channel had been once so piled, as they 
were smoked and broken in the same way, and seemed to amount 
in quantity to ten wagon loads or about seven cubic yards. 
- When were these stones piled and used as above described ? — 
“That is the question.” This place or piece of bottom is very 
seldom overflowed now, consequently it is building up from sedi- 
mentation very slowly. The heaps, or piles of stones were found 
about five feet beneath the present surface, and on the present 
surface bur oak trees are standing that are two hundred and fifty 
years old. These grew from acorns borne by a previous generation 
of trees, and the acorns from which they grew, judged by the sur- 
face roots of the trees, were not more than two feet beneath the 
Present surface of the ground. The under side of the surface 
roots would be a little below the position of the acorn when the 
