Note 17 — Chapter I

See Mr. A. Barrandt in Smithsonian Report, 1870, for an account of discoveries on Clark’s Creek in Dakota; on the Bighorn River; on the Yellowstone; on the Morean and the banks of the Great Cheyenne. See Foster’s Pre-Historic Races, pp. 153–4. The proof is conclusive that the head-waters of the Missouri was one of their ancient seats. The same gentleman (Mr. Barrandt) describes a remarkable mound in Lincoln County, Dakota, situated eighty-five miles north-west of Sioux City, on the west fork of the Little Sioux of Dakota or Turkey Creek. The mound is known as the “Hay Stack.” Its dimensions are 327 feet in length at the base on the north-west side, and 290 on the south-east side, and 120 feet wide. It slopes at an angle of about 50°, is from thirty-four to forty feet in height, the north-east end being the higher. To the summit, which is from twenty-eight to thirty-three feet wide, there is a well-beaten path. The remarkable feature of the mound is the fact that part of the north-east side is walled up with soft sandstone and limestone, brought a distance of at least three miles from an ancient quarry. The remainder of the surface is pronounced to be of calcined clay. The mound contained a large interior circular chamber, in which the bones of animals, thirty-six pieces of pottery, and a mass of charcoal and ashes were found.—Smithsonian Report for 1872, pp. 413 et seq.