380 ETHNOLOGY. 



resemble sleigh-bells of the Northern States, and must have been obtained 

 from Europeans having intercourse with the Indians. The bells were 

 used as "tinkling ornaments" by Cherokee women in their dances, and 

 were attached to bear-skin belts that were bound about their limbs. 



The great number of rattle-snakes that I encountered on the ridge pre- 

 vented a thorough examination of the place in the heat of summer, an 

 employment that may be resumed at a future time. 



The stone heaps were put up, undoubtedly, by the Oherokees of a re- 

 cent period. My researches did not throw much light upon their antiquity, 

 but they were found to differ essentially, in structure and contents, from 

 the rock tombs of the "mound-builders," already described, and they 

 must have had a later origin. 



The Cherokee custom of burying the dead under heaps of stone, it is 

 well known, was practiced as late as 1730. After free intercourse with 

 the whites their custom of inhumation prevailed with the natives. Con- 

 sidering the dilapidation, the condition of the animal remains, and the 

 decay of vegetation that indicated the former growth of trees of more 

 than a century, I regarded those piles that came under my observa- 

 tion as being two or three hundred years old. The bells, silver orna- 

 ments, and coin discovered in them belong, of course, to the age of metals 

 in this country, which may have begun on the banks of the Little Tennes- 

 see more than three hundred years ago. In 1G90 trading-stations were 

 established there by northern adventurers. 



ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT MOUNDS IN GEORGIA. 



By M. F. Stephenson, Gainesville, Georgia. 



The most extensive and perfect tumuli exist in Bartow County, on the 

 Etowah River, near Cartersville, consisting of ten mounds, situated in 

 the bend of the river, and protected from attack on the land side by a 

 moat, which is from twenty to thirty feet deep and was doubtless once 

 filled with water. The central mound is square, and measures one hun- 

 dred and iifty feet on the top,* with raised platform on the east side 

 twenty feet high and forty wide, evidently where sacrifices were offered, 

 as an idol of sandstone was plowed up on it, with excavated disks or 

 mortars six inches in diameter and of translucent quartz of elegant work- 

 manship, the stone axe, a small native copper vessel, the perforated shell, 

 (which is found in all the mounds,) the mica mirror, and the only gold 

 beads ever found, native gold being found in the neighborhood. This 

 mound is eighty-eight feet high, and a few rods from it is a circular one, 

 sixty feet high, which twenty years ago had a parapet on top five feet 

 in height. The remainder are small and only about twenty feet high. 

 Two points in the ditch are excavated an acre square as deep as the 



* It is not exactly a quadrangle, but the north side is 150 feet; the eastern, 160 feet; 

 .southeastern, 100 feet; south, 90 feet; aud the western side, 100 feet. 



