ANTIQUITIES OF KNOX COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
By M. A. McClelland, of Knoxville, Ill.
The drainage of the eastern and southern part of Knox County, Illinois, is accomplished by numerous small streams navigable in the spring for canoes. Their general course is toward the southeast to empty into Spoon River, a tributary of the Illinois. In the northwestern part of the county numerous other small streams have their rise, and, running to the west, finally empty into the Mississippi. The portage between the headwaters of these streams is only a few miles in extent.
The trails anciently followed by the aborigines have now entirely disappeared, but along their former course, and upon the bluffs of the streams, are still found implements of war, amusement, and the chase. The discoidal stone, stone hatchet, and arrow-points sent to the National Museum were all found upon the north bluffs of Court Creek, principally upon sections 13, 14, 15, 16, township 11 north, range 2 east, Knox County, Illinois. The stone axes, and arrow-points came also from these sections, except the largest, which came from Haw Creek, section 3, township 10 north, range 2 east.
To all the interrogatories contained in circular No. 316 I return a negative answer, except as to mounds and cemeteries.
Mounds and excavations.—No. 1. One and a half miles west of Knoxville, on section 30, township 11 north, range 2 east, Knox County, Illinois, on the east side of a ravine running into Haw Creek, on a level piece of timber land belonging to Harvey Montgomery, esq., is a single mound 51 feet in diameter, and at the center about 3 feet above the general surface. The trees upon this land are of two ages, viz, first, large oaks, elm, &c., 2 feet 8 inches in diameter, and a smaller growth, of black-jack, and white oak, ash, hickory, &c., 6 to 8 inches in diameter. The mound is surrounded by six or seven of these larger trees, one on the southwest edge of the mound, the others, west, north, northeast, west, and south,east, at variable distances, from 20 to 32 paces. Upon the mound there are numerous trees, of from 3 to 6 inches, growing. There are very large areas of ground in this same timber, in which the larger trees are very sparsely scattered. The mound is circular in form, and 60 feet S. S. W. is a circular pond or excavation, about 40 feet across, from which, doubtless, much of the earth of which the mound is composed was taken. Within 60 feet of its western edge the ground begins to decline to form the ravine which carries the water from the adjacent prairies to Haw Creek.
The mound had been dug into before, by whom I do not know, and I think nothing was found—at least that is the report. I cleaned out the former excavation, which was in the center, and about 4 feet across, enlarging it to 6 feet, carrying it at least 2 feet deeper, or 2½ feet below
