There is a small, shallow cave near the top of the bluff, half a mile north of Yancy Mills. It contains no evidence of occupation, except that walls and ceiling are blackened with smoke, due, probably, to modern refugees or hunters.
LANE MOUND (7)
It was reported, too late to visit the site, that on George Lane's farm, on Little Piney, a mile north of Yancy Mills, is a mound "8 feet high, built of earth," and surrounded with the usual evidences of a village site, scattered over the level bottom on which it stands.
CAIRNS ON LOST HILL, AT MOUTH OF GOURD CREEK (8)
Gourd Creek flows into the east side of Little Piney River 12 miles southwest of Rolla. It is less than 4 miles long, and but for three or four large springs near its source, which keep its volume fairly uniform, would be dry most of the year.
Parallel with it, a short distance to the southward, is a ravine several miles in length, known as Coal Pit Hollow. This originally discharged its drainage into Little Piney about half a mile above the mouth of Gourd Creek. A ravine tributary to the latter, near its mouth, has worked back until it has captured the flow of Coal Pit. The lower end of the stream bed thus abandoned now forms a gap or depression with a slight incline from the center in both directions. The crest of the deserted portion is about 50 to 60 feet above the present level of Little Piney. The hill inclosed by this quadrilateral drainage is about a fourth of a mile in length along its top, has a direction almost north and south, with a nearly uniform slope along the summit, the southern point being somewhat higher than that at the north, and terminates abruptly at each end. The sides descend at once from the center line of the ridge, like a roof with a slightly rounded comb.
On account of its isolated position the eminence is locally known as "Lost Hill." It is not to be confused, however, with several similar formations in this region, to which the same term is applied and which may owe their existence to a like cause, or may be due to cut-offs by streams.
On the top of this particular Lost Hill are six cairns, five of them near the northern end, the sixth just where the ridge breaks off to the south. The margins are uncertain owing to the upper stones being scattered by hunters as well as by credulous individuals who are firmly fixed in the belief that all such "rock piles" contain gold hidden by Indians.
So far as can now be determined the five at the northern end were 16 to 18 feet across as left by the builders, the southernmost one being somewhat smaller. All are in uncleared land, and crevices between the stones are filled with a tangled mass of roots from the trees and bushes growing on and around them.
The relative positions are about thus, measurements being made on the earth between the scattered stones: (1) 10 feet, (2) 10 feet, (3) 50 feet, (4) 10 feet, (5) 1,000 feet, (6). The distance from (5) to (6) is estimated by stepping and may vary considerably either way from the measure given.