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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



THE DEERCREEK MOUND* 

 Report of Its Excavation and Location. 

 By Walter A. Dun, M. D., M. R. C. S. 



On the 26th day of June, 1876, in company with Mr. Scott Cunning- 

 ham, now a hardware merchant in Chillicothe, Ohio, I commenced the 

 excavations, the results of which lie before you to-night. 



The mound, which was the principal object of our work, was situated 

 on a farm owned by Mrs. Heath, and located on the banks of Deercreek, 

 nine miles from Chilicothe, and a few miles north of the road leading from 

 Chillicothe to Clarksburg. The mound is located upon a bluff, which, is 

 composed of shale covered with a layer of clay and some drift, about two 

 hundred and fifty feet high, and which forms a projecting promontory into 

 the valley of the creek. The distance from the creek is about a third of a 

 mile, down the precipitous shaly bluff and across a narrow strip of fertile 

 black loam that lies on the level with the creek banks. Deercreek is at 

 this point a stream of considerable importance. It rises in Clark County, 

 Ohio, and after traversing the counties of Madison, Fayette, Pickaway 

 and Ross for about a hundred miles, empties into the Scioto River about 

 six miles below the situation of this mound. This portion of the stream 

 is consequently extremely liable to rapid fluctuations, from the rains fall- 

 ing in the various parts of its basin. The overflows at this point are 

 frequent and damaging, and carry out into the narrow black loam of its 

 valley a quantity of muscle shells, which appear in nearly every spade- 

 ful of earth; and, in various stages of disintegration, are becoming rapidly 

 incorporated with the soil. The shale of the bluff belongs to the great 

 shales of the Devonian age, and has undergone atmospheric disintegra- 

 tion at the exposures. The crown of this bluff is covered with a thick 

 yellow clay containing small rounded peebles, so characteristic of the drift 

 formation. From the north bank of the creek a broad first bottom extends 

 for a couple of miles, and then merges into a country more rolling in 

 character. 



Covering the bluff and mound was the native forest undisturbed. Many 

 trees, including some on the mound, were two or three feet in diameter, 

 and no doubt dated back some centuries. The forest growth was so dense, 

 on and around the mound, as to seriously obstruct the prospeet from its 

 summit. But here and there in the breaks of the foliage, the extent of 



;;: "This paper, by Dr. Walter A. Dun, was read at the meeting of the Society for 

 January, 1884. It was referred to the Publishing Committee, but has been delayed 

 until the present time. — Note by Editor. 



