NOTE-BOOK NO. 1,
OF THE
KICKAPOO CLUB.
BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS,
1914.
The articles shown herein are one bronze and steel-edgedtomahawk blade, found at the site of Kickapoo Fort inSection 5, West Township, McLean Co. Ill., by Mark Piper,one granite hatchet made from a discarded discoidalhammer-stone (or discoidal hammer-stone made from adiscarded hatchet, which?) and one flint drill, both foundby S. W. Le Neve, at Kingfisher Hill, Menard County, Ill.The five smaller potsherds beneath these were also found byMark Piper, at Kingfisher Hill.
The two perpendicular rows of stamped and roulettedpotsherds on each side of this group were found at anancient camp-site on the south bluff of the Sangamon river,on the Center Farm, in the north part of Menard Co. Ill.,by Mr. E. H. Hamilton and are now in the collection of theMcLean County Historical Society.
"Help Save the Great Cahokia Mound"
By C. H. Robinson, Normal, Illinois.
On April 20th, 1913, an enthusiastic party of Bloomington and Normalmen made an archaeological expedition to the great Cahokia moundgroup in Southern Illinois, which is located in Madison and St. Claircounties, about two miles east of the corporate limits of East St.Louis, Illinois. The location is easily accessible by way of the newhard road or by the St. Louis and Collinsville electric system.
The great Cahokia, or better know as Monk's Mound, together with manysmaller mounds are located on a 204 acre farm belonging to the Hon.T. T. Ramey's heirs. This farm is situated in the most picturesqueand richest part of the famous "American bottoms." Land which is sofertile that even the aborigines raised much with but little effortand which no doubt led to the location and construction here of thelargest earth mound ever built by primitive man, the great pyramid ofCheops in Egypt or the Aztec temple mound of Mexico excepted. Monk'smound covers more ground than any pyramid of Egypt. Cheops is but 746feet square, the Aztec temple of Mexico is 680 feet square, whileMonk's mound is 1080 feet by 780 feet and 104 feet high making about84,000,000 cubic feet of earth.
This mound has never been touched with pick or shovel, although greatquantities of archaeological material have been removed from many ofthe surrounding smaller mounds and cultivated fields, and many finecollections are to be found in both private and public places, takenfrom this most ancient residence site of a vanquished race.
The variety and nature of material formed around the great Cahokiagroup clearly indicate that the mound builders or their successorshad access to or traded with other tribes or people located at theheadquarters of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, also on the Gulfof Mexico, and possibly from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans,as evidenced by the vast quantities and nature of the material,from which such large varities of implements and ornaments wereconstructed. For as workmen are known by their