of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 73-75
LAND AND FRESH WATER MOLLUSKS. The mollusks found in Muscatine county are many and the Professor describes each and every one by its Latin name. These are omitted, it being taken for granted that none but a scientist learned in the dead languages would be interested, or able to intelligently interpret one-fifth part of the paragraph. That part, however, which refers to the Unionidae is given in full, as follows:
SHELL BEARING MOLLUSKS. The soft parts of the Unionidae afford an abundance of bait for fishermen. The thick, heavy shells are capable of being made into a great variety of useful and ornamental objects. All our shell bearing mollusks give lime to the soil. Broken shells were used by the primitive men of this county in making their earthern vessels, and shells held an important place with this people as an article of adornment. There is no evidence that our river mollusks were ever used here as an essential article of food. I suppose the chief obstacle in the way of cultivating for the table, especially the Anodonta grandis, so abundant in Keokuk Lake, is the changeable character of our waters. Whether a fine, fat young grandis could ever get the reputation of oysters from Saddle Rock or Far Rockaway is a question for the "coming man" to solve.
PREHISTORIC REMAINS. Along the bluffs of the Mississippi in this county, generally in the most commanding positions, are great numbers of tumuli, or artificial mounds of earth. These vary from slight elevations, scarcely perceptible, to mounds ten feet high and fifty to one hundred feet across at the base. No particular order among them has yet been observed, except they are in groups of from fifteen to twenty-five each, or even more. The mounds in a group are usually not more than from fifty to one hundred feet apart. One group of small mounds is on section 14, township 77 north, range 3 west, of the fifth principal meridian. This is on the east bluff of the Cedar and is the only group on this stream that has come to my notice in this county. With the exception of a few mounds on section 22, township 77 north, range 1 east, all others, so far as I know, are on points of land on the Mississippi bluffs that would have been above the water in loess time.
The exceptions above referred to are in a fine state of preservation and stand on a bottom about eighty rods wide, a few feet above high water, and about forty rods from the Mississippi river. Comparatively little has been done to systematically explore the mounds of this county. Some earthen vessels, stone axes, arrow and spear points and plummet like implements, made of hematite, have been taken from the mounds. Fragments of pottery, stone axes, etc., are frequently found along our ravines.
Whatever may have been the chief purpose of these mounds, it is certain some of their dead were buried in them. Human bones, generally almost like ashes, are common in the mounds. It is hardly possible that all the dead were put in mounds, as it is quite certain that many mounds contain each the remains of but two or three persons. When this ancient people flourished in this county, whence they came and whither they went, are questions over which the shadows of the past still hover. Some race or races of men lived among the borders of the great Missouri Lake in loess time. Professor Samuel Aughey, of Lincoln, Nebraska, has found arrow and spear points in the loess near Omaha, Sioux City, etc., along with the remains of the elephant and mastodon, and F. F. Hilder, secretary of the archaeological section of the St. Louis Academy of Science, in a letter to me says: "About a year ago I had the good fortune to find an arrow head of black chert, very rudely formed, in the undisturbed loess of this city, about six feet below the surface."
Twenty-two miles, south of Muscatine, in and around the village of Toolsboro, in Louisa county, numerous mounds, larger than those of this county, have been carefully examined and finely wrought earthen vessels and pipes, also copper axes, awls, beads and a sheet of that metal, marine shells now living in the gulf, shell beads, and probably charred corn, have been exhumed. In the same vicinity earthworks exist---in one instance, straight for over eighty rods, and in another, circular, inclosing perhaps ten acres. These are nearly obliterated by cultivation. I call attention to these remains beyond this county only because that point appears to have been the center of strength and wealth for this region.
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