The flood level of the Missouri is not more than 15 feet lower than the level space along the sides of the ravine. The little intermittent stream has cut down this depth through a deposit which is composed of river sediment, wash from the hills on each side, and material carried from higher levels by the brook itself in rainy seasons. At only one point is there a real glacial deposit, and this does not extend for more than 50 feet horizontally, and does not reach to the top of the bank. It is at some distance from the graves, and may be due to a lobe of the ice or to an iceberg. However formed or deposited here it has no relation whatever to the skeletons. In a sense, the material in which they were buried is "Kansan drift"; but it is drift which has been redistributed and has come into its present position within a few centuries at the most.
NEAR HOWE, NEBRASKA
Mr. Sam P. Hughes, who lives near Howe, has done considerable excavating in that vicinity. He is an intelligent man and an ardent student, but his ideas in regard to the age of his discoveries need much revision downward. His chief work has been done north of Howe at a place 9 miles from the nearest point on the Missouri River. Here is a small level area at the end of a ridge sloping away in every direction except at the narrow isthmus connecting it with the fields beyond, which are at a level only slightly higher. Thus there is no chance for any accumulation from the adjacent surface. On this ridge are a few lodge sites which Hughes has excavated. In every respect they are similar to lodge sites reported from other localities in this region. The walls, the depression, the floor, the fireplace, are all the same. The depressions are filled with earth to a depth of 18 to 22 inches above the level of the old floor; and Hughes reports that wherever he has dug on this ridge he has found flint chips, charcoal, fragments of pottery, and scraps of bone to about the same depth. Next below the soil is the Kansan glacial drift; but the assertion that objects found at this depth are of the same age as the drift is not necessarily or even presumably correct.
PERU, NEBRASKA
On various hills in the vicinity of Peru are lodge sites, some of them circular, some rectangular, some with straight sides and rounded corners. Most of them have been dug in at random; in every case after a certain depth of accumulated earth and trash is passed through, there is a layer of clay which formed the roof, and beneath this the hard earth floor with fireplace usually in the center but sometimes a little toward one side.
PAPILLION, NEBRASKA
At the time of my visit, Dr. Frederick H. Sterns, of the Peabody Museum, was working near here. He described himself as "the man who is extremely anxious to find a glacial or other very ancient man, but so far has not succeeded in getting track of him." Dr. Sterns did not claim a period antedating the Indian for anything he had then unearthed—meaning the known Indian tribes.