A short distance below the explorers carved their names on a rock which projected into the stream. Accounts as to this spot differ; it is generally stated that in making a road around here, the rock containing the names was blasted away; but a man in the neighborhood who claims to know the exact spot says the blasting did not extend quite so far and that the names are covered by a mass of earth and rock which slid from the bluff many years ago. If this be true, a thrill awaits the man who finds the names some centuries from now, when the river has washed away all this accumulated material.
Near the mouth of Wolf River is a village site on which Dr. R.S. Dinsmore, of Troy, has counted 125 tipi sites. Relics are very abundant here, especially the small chert "thumb-scrapers," which outnumber all other specimens.
Four miles east of Troy, on a ridge so steep that its top is inaccessible from either side, and so narrow that a wagon would make a track on each slope, is a little mound worn down until its true nature would not be suspected. Dr. Dinsmore was on this ridge one day and noticed a flat limestone rock. Knowing that it had no place in the loess, he began digging to ascertain the reason for it being there. At a depth of a few inches he found bones, and soon unearthed a number of skulls, with only his hands or a stick. Coming back later with tools, he found, in all, 56 skulls. Afterwards he found others, and persons in the neighborhood have exhumed many more. The deposit represents a communal burial, from a village which probably stood on the level creek bottom not far away. A few skeletons showed an attempt at orderly arrangement. These were probably of individuals who had not been dead long at the time of the general burial. Most of the bones, however, skulls and others, were piled in the smallest possible area, as if gathered up in sacks or baskets from previous burials and carried here for reinterment. The soil is so loose as to be easily dug with the hands, like sand; but at the same time so fine and close packed as to shed water almost like a roof. Owing to the steep slope at every point, except toward the summit of the ridge, there must be some erosion, and consequently the age of the burials can not be great. Yet, the same conditions prevail in other places where a great antiquity is claimed for the remains. Frost necessarily disintegrates the soil to some extent; the wind or rain carries away the loosened portions; and this process is continuous. The shape of the mound shows that when the burials were made the ridge was essentially identical in form with its present aspect. The bones also are comparatively fresh in appearance, and it may be considered certain that they can not date back many generations.