as hard as a brick, and the bottom for the depth of a foot filled with ashes, charcoal, and broken pottery.
Nine miles farther east, up the Sangamon Valley and near the bluffs, is another large conical inound, 25 feet high, which has never been examined even superficially. These three mounds, assuming the latter two to be the product of human agency, are all of the first class, and of any class worthy the designation of mounds, found upon the river terraces or bottoms in the county.
The next class of mounds comprise those next largest in magnitude, and are more numerous than the first. They are invariably perched upon the peaks of the Sangamon bluffs, rarely exceeding 8 or 10 feet in height by 20 to 30 in diameter, and are more frequently met of much smaller dimensions. This class of mounds differs from all the others in the peculiar disposition of the remains they inclose. Too few in numbers to constitute the sepulchers of a distinct tribe with an exclusive burial custom, we must conclude that they cover the remains of a class of individuals distinguished from the commonalty for superior ability or merit. The mode of inhumation in mounds of this kind consisted in placing the body or bodies (for they contain from one to six or eight each) of the deceased upon the ground in a sitting or squatting posture, with the face to the east, and inclosing them with a rudely-constructed circular wall of rough, undressed stones, which was gradually contracted at the top, and finally covered over with a single broad stone slab, over all of which the earth was heaped. Though I have carefully examined several of these mounds, I have not yet succeeded in securing from them either an entire skull or earthen vessel, as their inclosed cairns are invariably found to have fallen in and crushed the bones and accompanying pottery into a confused mass. Nor have I discovered in them copper implements or pipes of any description, or any object of carved stone; but only a few flint and bone implements, and broken pottery without ornamentation and of very poor quality. Judging from every indication, external and internal, I would conclude that the class of earthworks under consideration were very old were it not for the singular fact that in one of them, a few years ago, the decayed bones of a single individual were found, with a few flint arrow points, a small earthen cup or vase, and an iron gun-barrel very much corroded.
The next class of mounds in this county are so numerous and were obviously constructed with so little care and labor that we must regaid them as the depositories or cemeteries of the common and untitled dead. They are seen on every knob and ridge of the bluffs and on the hills bordering all of our smaller streams. Seldom rising in elevation more than a foot or two above the general surface, they frequently cover a space of 10 or 15 yards in diameter, and we sometimes find eight or ten of them in a row, along the crest of a ridge, separated from each other by intervals of 10 or 15 yards; each containing the bones of a greater or less number of individuals in different states of preservation. Their
