Mr. A. J. Conant, in a very able paper published in the _Transactions of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences_ for April 5, 1876, has more fully described the mound works near New Madrid. On the western bank of the Bayou St. John, partly in a cypress swamp covered with heavy timber and partly on adjacent prairie land, an earthwork encloses an area of about fifty acres. In this enclosure are three large mounds, one of which is pyramidal in form and still has traces of a graded way. An ancient well is discernible near it. A circular mound at the opposite end of the enclosure is estimated by Mr. Conant to have afforded a place of burial for a thousand individuals. The bodies were buried with their heads pointing toward the centre of the mound. A gourd-shaped vase, a small jug or drinking vessel, and an earthen pan or platter was found with each skeleton. The mouths of the vases were fashioned into the form of the head of some bird or the figure of some animal or of a human female. In depressions about three feet deep, within the enclosure, remains of burnt clay ovens were found. Fire-places were disclosed, as well as fragments of earthen vessels capable of holding ten or twelve gallons. The veritable kitchens of the Mound-builders, with their furniture, seem to have been brought to light. In front of the enclosure and projecting out into the bayou, are tongues of land about thirty feet long by ten or fifteen feet in width, and about the same distance apart, “resembling upon a small scale the wharves of a seaport town.” Mr. Conant pronounces them artificial, and that when employed by these builders, the present cypress swamp was the channel of a river. The multitude of mound works which are scattered over the entire south-eastern portion of Missouri indicate that the region “was once inhabited by a population so numerous, that in comparison its present occupants are only as the scattered pioneers of a newly-settled country.”[61] [Illustration: Discoidal Stones. (Nat. Mus.) Central figure, upper line, from Illinois Mound.]