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be a cap which only extends half way down the hill. Immediately under these rocks one finds a red and brown clay.

The mound was in the midst of large, flat, irony sand rocks and was about two feet above the surrounding rocks; it was ten feet across and nearly circular. The soil which was mixed with the rocks seemed darker in color and was more fertile, as was evinced by the vegetation growing there, and it was probably carried from the valley. This is what first attracted my attention. The rocks at the edges of this mound sloped toward the center, showing that they had settled. The mound was probably much higher at one time. From the appearance, I concluded I had found the sepulcher of some noted chief, and I concluded to open the mound. The rocks extended to a depth of four feet. had a covering of three courses of flat rocks about three inches thick. They were so large that it took two men to get them out of the hole. It seems that the oblong excavation was hollowed out of the original rocky hill about five feet deep, and something had been deposited there, as the soil for sixteen inches below the rocks was mixed with some dark fibery substance which left a whitish-green mould on the under side of the rocks.

The mound

There was not, however, a single scrap of bone or any substance other than the mould and displaced earth which would assist in determining what had been buried there. I doubt that it was a human body, as the form of the bones would have been found. It may have been meat, or it may have been hides or blankets. Whatever may have been placed there had so thoroughly decayed that no proof was left to determine it.

I am certain the mound was erected by human hands; I am certain coyotes could not have removed the bones if it were a grave, and the only solution I can give is that something had been cached there and then removed, the rocks and mound being replaced, or that the substance cached has

wholly decayed during the many years since the mound was made.

A well-defined, rude wall surrounded the oblong hole both above and below the flat rocks. The excavation was a little larger than the rocks which covered it, so that their weight rested on whatever was placed under them. This mound is near the old trail and a spring is found near "Pulpit Rock," forty rods south.

The hard sandstone which caps the hills in this vicinity is the material which the Indians used to make "planers." These are blocks of sandstone about one and a half inches each way and from three to ten inches long. A groove is made lengthwise on the flattened side and the other three sides are rounded. Two of these planers are used together. A shaft which is to be used as an arrow shaft is placed in this groove. Both are held in the hand with the shaft held lightly between them. By drawing the arrow shaft back and forth it is made straight and smooth; it is made round by turning it as it is moved back and forth.

This irony sand rock made durable planers. They are found on almost every village site in the state. A streak of brown sandstone extends nearly across the state, but it is not always suitable for planers.

DONIPHAN TRIP.

An interesting discovery was recently made in the clay pit at the brick yard near Doniphan, two miles south of the Platte river in Hall county. About twenty acres of the clay has been removed to a depth of thirty feet. About the 1st of July they began to remove the clay from a deeper level and uncovered an area of several hundred square yards to a depth of thirty-six feet. At this level the workmen came to black surface soil not fit for bricks.

I investigated this locality August 23. I found this stratum of surface soil to be about four and a half feet deep -three times as deep as the black soil on the present surface.

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The loess deposit immediately above this stratum of black soil is intermixed with charcoal and bones. The bones are not human, and I saw no sign of a campfire or any area where the evidences showed that man had resided, but one of the workmen said that he saw two places which showed that a campfire had been maintained for some time. If evidences of man are found at this place there can be no question but he lived here in interglacial days, as the locality is such that the glacial loess alone could have buried this black surface soil. The area which was uncovered to the deepest level unfortunately was covered with water, and the spot where the workman saw the fireplaces could not be seen. Later we hope to see the area drained.

By digging at a point near, we exposed a cross-section of the black soil and were able to study it. This black soil is underlaid with a tough clay intermixed with coarse sand. It is a light yellowish-brown with a pea-green tint; while the clay above lacks the tint of green and has rusty streaks through it.

At one point in the cross-section was a crack extending vertically the whole way down, through the loess above as well as the black soil. This crack was one-sixteenth of an inch wide and was washed full of very light yellow soil. The crack appeared the same width all the way and extended across the excavation, showing on both sides of the pit.

The bones, as well as blocks of the soil, were secured for the museum. Mr. John Schwyn, who owns the brickyard, is a student of archeology. He has kindly consented to keep a close watch when the second level is being removed, and we hope to secure reliable facts about this surface which was covered so many years ago.

If evidences of man are found in this clay pit it will forever settle the problem of the "Nebraska Loess Man." The surface here is eighty feet above the Platte level, two miles from the river, and on a level with the surrounding tableland. It is in a comparatively level country where a "land slide" could not happen.

The same stratum of black soil has been observed in excavating at Aurora and at other points near. It seems that a large area of fertile land existed here in interglacial days.

NEHAWKA TRIP.

September 11 I briefly reviewed the vicinity of the flint quarries near Nehawka, in company with C. C. Cobb of York. The only new point observed during this trip was in a deep ravine which has been recently washed out to a depth of sixteen feet, not far from the bed of the Weeping Water creek. About half way from the creek to the base of the hill where the flint quarries are found this ravine cuts a cross-section at right angles with either. At a depth of sixteen feet below the present surface I found a number of flint spalls as they were struck off the nodules and rejected. I also secured a piece of limestone reddened by heat which rested at the same level. This proves the great age of these quarries. They have existed long enough for the hill to erode and bury this burned rock sixteen feet deep at a point 200 feet from the present foot of the hill and 100 feet from the present bed of the stream. The stream now has a level of ten feet below where this burned rock was found. No spalls were found below the sixteen foot level, but above that level to the surface the soil was evenly strewn with broken bits of rock, burned and natural, as well as numerous flint chips.

This cut made by nature is an interesting study. It shows the substance of a cross-section nearly twenty feet deep and it is rich black soil all the way down.

ADAMS TRIP.

September 24 I visited A. H. Whittemore, of Adams. Mr. Whittemore wrote me some time ago of his collection of stone-age implements found near Adams, and I visited him for the purpose of looking over his collection; and I succeeded in getting his interest aroused to such an extent that he will attend to the archeology of his particular locality. I

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brought to the museum one of the finest specimens of Quivera tomahawk I have ever seen. It was found near Beatrice. It shows much wear and appears to be very old. A few very fine blades of Nehawka flint were found in the same locality. This is evidence that the people who worked the Nehawka quarries trafficked with the people on the Blue river, and probably were contemporaneous. No specimens of catlinite are found about the ruins along the Blue valley. If these ruins are Quivera in type, the Indians which Coronado met evidently knew nothing of the catlinite quarries. Mr. Whittemore loaned us a pipe made from a very fine grained sandstone which Dr. Barbour calls Dakota cretaceous, intimately cemented with red oxide of iron. This material evidently was found in the drift and used occasionally for making pipes. This pipe is a small disk pipe. A similar disk pipe was found near Genoa and is in the Larson collection. Three or more have been found along the Elkhorn river, and are in the Hopkins collection.

TRIP TO MARQUETTE.

In "Indian Sketches" by John T. Irving, Jr., you will find a very graphic account of a trip among the various tribes of Nebraska Indians made in 1833 by Edward Ellsworth. He made a treaty with the Otoes on the Platte, and visited the Pawnees in three of their important villages. It has not been difficult to find the ruins of the Otoe village near where Yutan now stands, and the ruins which are found near Fullerton may be identified as one of the villages visited. What I have called the Horse Creek site, twelve miles west of Fullerton, is certainly the Skidi village which Irving describes, but the Choui village, situated south of the Platte, has thus far not been identified. I have made inquiry of those living in Polk and Hamilton counties without avail.

Tuesday, October 22, I went to Marquette to begin the search for the ruin of the Choui village which was visited by Ellsworth in 1833.

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