human bones were all of them more or less broken, the breaking seeming to have been done when the bones were fresh. In one or two instances only were we able to find the different pieces of the same bone. In one case a femur was broken into three pieces, the head and two parts of the shaft, and these were 2 or 3 feet apart. It may be stated here also that these scattered human bones, the flints and broken pieces of pottery, together with the shells and bones of animals, were all of them above the depth where the skeleton was found, as though they were mixed with the earth of which the mound was built. We could account for this in the following manner: The chips of flint, shells, bones of animals, and the scattered human bones were on the surface when the burial took place, and after the body had been placed in position the dirt on the surface that could be the most easily obtained was gathered up together with whatever was scattered over the surface. Of this the mound was built, and, from what we know of the habits of the Indians of the present, it takes but little imagination to form a picture of the squaws gathering up this material in their baskets and carrying it to the place where it was wanted. This would imply that the people who did the burying were cannibals, and the broken character of the scattered human bones would in a measure substantiate that view.
A STONE FORT NEAR MAKANDA, JACKSON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
By G. H. French, of Carbondale, Ill.
In company with Prof. A. C. Hillman and Mr. John Martin, one of our students very much interested in natural history, I visited Stone Fort, near Makanda. This place is situated in township 10 south, range 1 west, of the third principal meridian, on the east side of the Illinois Central Railroad, and is about three-fourths of a mile, by road, northeast from the village of Makanda. The country here is very hilly and rocky, Makanda being situated in a gorge, through which the Drury Creek runs. North of Makanda, where the road turns east, is a side gorge, through which runs a small tributary stream of the Drury, more or less lined with rocky bluffs on both sides. The surface beyond the bluffs in some places slopes upward; at others the bluffs are nearly as high as the general elevation of the surrounding country. On the west of a bluff known as the Stone Fort another smaller stream comes down between the bluffs. It is now nearly dry but is well filled with water in times of freshets. Stone Fort is a ledge of rocks projecting out as a rounded point from the northern and eastern side of this second gorge, more toward the stream than the general course of the bluffs. On the southern face the bluff is 125 feet high. Across its neck above extends a pile of stone, running east and west, which gives the place its only import-
