but all I should say within ten feet from the original surface of the mound.  As we penetrated the interior fewer remains were continually found.  The earth gave many indications of having been burnt.  At one point the pick-axe sank ten inches into the hard wall.  This was about fifteen feet from the outside.  The excavator then dug out with his hand from a horizontal pocket in the earth eight or ten inches wide and eighteen or twenty inches deep, a quantity of soft brown dust, and a piece of bone some four inches long, a part of a human forearm bone.  This pocket was plainly the original resting place of a skeleton, probably in a sitting posture.  As deeper penetration was made brown earthy spots without a trace of bone remaining were come upon.  The excavation on the south side was continued for thirty feet into the mound, but at this stage it was evident that bones, pottery, etc., had been so long interred that they were reduced to dust.  No hope seemed to remain now of finding objects of interest in this direction, and so with about forty feet yet wanting to complete, the tunnel, the search was transferred to the top of the mound.

The upper cut.

Beginning on the crest of the mound, the mould was removed over a considerable space, and though some trouble was found from the presence of the roots of the growing trees, yet three or four feet from the surface human bones and skeletons began to occur.  In some cases a complete skeleton was found, in other cases what seemed to be a circle of skulls, buried alongside charred bones, fragments of pottery and other articles.  Several different excavations were made on the mound surface, and it was found that every part from the base to the crest contained bones and skeletons, to the depth of from six to ten feet as already said; bones and articles of interest were found thus far; deeper than this nothing.  I shall now describe the articles found in this mound, and refer in some cases to what has been found in the other mounds of the Takawgamis.

Natural products.

1. Bones.  Of the bones found, the skulls were the most interesting.  In some cases it would seem as if they alone of the bones had been carried from a distance, perhaps from a distant part of the mound builders’ territory, from a battle field or some other spot.  In some cases this was proved, by the presence in the eye-sockets and cavities of clay of a different kind from that of the mound, showing a previous interment.  The mound was plainly a sacred spot of the family or sept.  Before you are pieces of charred bone.  Of the bones unburnt some were of large size.  There are before us two skulls, one from the grand mound, the other from the Red River mound opened by the Society in 1879.  The following are the measurements of the two skulls which I have made carefully; and alongside the average measurements of the Brachycephalic type given by Dr. Daniel Wilson, as well as of the Dolichocephalic: