Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/56



and skill in carving. Twenty copper pipes and eleven copper awls were taken from these mounds.

All of the mounds contained skeletons and ashes; two contained altars of stone. In one, tablets were found upon which were hieroglyphics representing letters and figures of people, trees and animals.

In the mound represented in the accompanying illustration, not far below the surface, two skeletons were found. Below these were layers of river shells and ashes several feet in thickness. Beneath these three mature skeletons were lying in a horizontal position, and between them was the skeleton of a child. Near them were five copper



4— MAP OF SECTION OF COOK FARM

axes wrapped in cloth, stones forming a star, carved pipes, several bears' teeth and a broken lump of ochre.

In a mound opened by Rev. Mr. Gass west of Muscatine slough, in 1880, there was found a carved stone pipe, a carved bird, a small copper ax and a pipe carved in the shape of an elephant. Another pipe was discovered in that vicinity shaped to represent a mastodon.

The section of a map here presented shows the location of the mounds on the Cook farm where these interesting relics were discovered.

Similar evidences of the ingenious and skillful work of that prehistoric race have been found over a wide range