surface of the ground, or in shallow saucer-like depressions, in a sitting or doubled-up posture 5 or the dry bones, after decomposition of the flesh, had been gathered in bundles and placed on the ground in piles, and the earth heaped over them in a conical mound of greater or less magnitude. But in some, judging from the better state of preservation of the inclosed remains to be of most recent construction, a different arrangement is observed. The buried skeletons are found on the surface of the ground, but laid at full length on their backs, and surrounded or inclosed with thin broad stones or sheets of bituminous shale, stuck into the ground upright, and probably at the time of interment covered over with poles or bark before the earth was thrown on. This change in disposing of the corpse for burial was, in my opinion, a consequent innovation of the first contact with Europeans; and we have convincing reasons for believing that the old practice of burying the dead above ground in mounds of earth or stone prevailed generally among our Indians down to their acquaintance with the whites. Here, as elsewhere, we occasionally find the remains of Indians extended full length in graves below the surface of the ground, unmarked by mound or monument of any kind. These comparatively modern graves, copied after those of the white intruders, are, like the mounds, invariably on the high lands 5 and in many instances the crumbling chalk-like bones can only be identified as belonging to the red race by the implements of stone or shell ornaments associated with them.
Upon the open prairies of Cass County neither mounds nor graves of the pre-historic dead are ever found, and but few of their relics excepting flint weapons of the chase. The Indians no doubt hunted the deer and buffalo and elk on our prairies, but neither lived nor buried their dead there. Their camping-grounds and villages were in the groves along the streams and near springs, and they located their cemeteries upon the adjacent bluffs.
The southern Hue of this country in its entire length coincides very nearly with a small stream, called Indian Creek, which drains the prairies of a portion of Sangamon County, and, running almost directly west, joins the Illinois ten miles below Beardstown. This creek, too, was the resort of the hunter tribes, and along its banks are still traces of many of their camps and relics of their home life; and on the hills overlooking its valley are the low mound graves of their dead. On a high terrace sloping down to the water of this little stream I discovered, some time ago, the location of an ancient workshop for the manufacture of flint implements. The ground for a considerable space was littered with chips and nodules of flint and broken and unfinished arrow and spear points; and scattered here and there were several water-worn bowlders of granite and greenstone, brought from the drift clay of the hills for use by the early artisans as anvils. In this débris a beautiful polished celt of hematite and a few complete flint weapons have been recovered, together with bone punches and awls, and quantities of
