ANCIENT COPPER-MINES OF ISLE ROY ALE. 617 



of the dead, and interring them in a common repository. A mound of 

 the latter description was formerly situated on the low grounds of the 

 Rivanna River, in Virginia, opposite the site of an old Indian village 

 (Jefferson's " Notes on Virginia," pp. 100, 103). It was forty feet in di- 

 ameter and twelve feet in height, of a spheroidal form, and surrounded 

 by a trench, whence the earth employed in its erection had been exca- 

 vated. The circumstances attending the custom alluded to were, the 

 great number of skeletons, their confused position, their situation in 

 distinct strata, exhibiting different stages of decomposition, and the 

 appearance of bones of infants. A mound of similar character, and 

 constructed in layers or strata at successive periods, existed near the 

 south branch of the Shenandoah, in the same State. A tumulus of 

 stones, in New York State, is said to have marked the grave of a dis- 

 tinguished warrior (McCauley's " History of New York," vol. ii, p. 

 239). " Beck's Gazetteer " (p. 308) states that " a mound of the largest 

 dimensions has been thrown up, within a few years, in Illinois, over 

 the remains of an eminent chief." The Natchez Indians, when ex- 

 pelled from Louisiana in 1728, erected a mound " of considerable size " 

 near Natchitoches, as stated in the documents accompanying the Pres- 

 ident's message for 1806. C. C. Jones, referring* to plate xl of the 

 " Brevis Narratio," says that " here we have a spirited representation 

 of the ceremonies observed by the Florida Indians upon the occasion 

 of the sepulture of their kings and priests. Located in the vicinity 

 of the village appears a small conical mound, surmounted by the shell 

 drinking-cup of the deceased, and surrounded by a row of arrows stuck 

 in the ground. Gathered in a circle about this sepulchral tumulus, 

 the bereaved members of the tribe, upon bended knees, are bewailing 

 the death of him in whose honor this grave-mound had been heaped 

 up." Jones also mentions an instance of a primary burial under a 

 mound erected in honor of the dead, on the coast a few miles below 

 Savannah, in which, along with an earthen pot, several arrow-heads, 

 a stone celt, and bones of a human skeleton, was found in immediate 

 association a portion of an old-fashioned sicord. This tiimidus, thus 

 proved to have been erected since the advent of the Europeans, was 

 seven feet high and about twenty feet in diameter at the base. Of 

 the sword, the parts preserved were the oak handle, most of the guard, 

 and about seven inches of the blade. The rest had perished from rust. 

 The Mandans, according to Catlin (" North American Indians," vol. i, 

 p. 90), constructed mounds in commemoration of their dead, and the 

 same is said of the Arickarees by Professor Lewis H. Morgan (twenty- 

 first report of the New York State Cabinet). The mounds at Lanes- 

 boro, in the State of Minnesota, are said by the old Winnebago chief 

 Winneshiek f to have been erected by the Sioux, in commemoration 



* " Antiquities of the Southern Indians." 



f This old chief is still living, near Trempeleau, Wisconsin, and is said to be about 

 one hundred years old. 



