GEORGIA. 



423 



These circles are surrounded by hundreds of shell-mounds, about 3 feet 

 high, on bases of 20 to 50 feet, which crowd, without visible order, a held 

 of one hundred acres or more, bounded on the west by salt marsh and in- 



3rOUNDS 

 SAPELO ISr-^V2JI> 



aiC.IKTOSH CU., GA. 

 Statute lliles. 



land salt river, and on the east by fresh-water jungle. On all these shell- 

 mounds and over all this plain are found fragments of Indian pottery, 

 both plain and ornamented. No funeral mounds are nearer than three 

 miles. The shells are all of mollusks yet living in the neighboring waters, 

 the oyster, clam, conch, vscallop, &c., which fact, and the broken pottery, 

 show plainly that these shell-mounds, indicated by dots on the map, iu 

 countless number, are ancient camps of the Indians or mound-builders, 

 where they dwelt, while the three great mound- circles were doubt- 

 less for councils or games. The big circle, yet perfect, was probably 

 the " pow-wow" or state house, and place of torture of captives, "chunk- 

 yard" of theUchees; it w^as certainly the most important; while the 

 other two were perhaps for dances and athletic sports and games. These 

 three circles and this field of thickly set, countless shell-mounds, are on 

 the west shore of Sapelo Island. The cemetery or funeral mounds are 

 found far oft'— three at Kenan, six miles southerly ; one very large one 

 at " Druid Grove," or " Spalding," ten miles oft"; and two on the eastern 

 shore on Blackbeard's River, three miles oft". None others are known ; 

 but very ujuch of the intervening central part of the island is impene- 

 trable palmetto thicket, and it is possible other mounds exist in this 



