412 ABORIGINAL RUINS IN TENNESSEE. 



liave been lost tliere, as tbere were no visible marks of auytliing' further. 

 iN'otbiug- more was found in this mound. The composition, light soil, as 

 usual, shows that it had l)een gathered from the surfoce. 



]\Iound iST: Fifteen yards across, and three feet high. Two feet down 

 we found a broken stone implement, which was the only article obtained. 

 The composition of the mound was the same as M. 



Mound O : A double mouiul, forty by seventy yards at base of largest 

 end, and eiglit feet high. We excavated at three points, and found two 

 to be of no interest whatever. The third one, at the large end of the 

 mound, })roved otherwise. We started down through red and crumbly 

 earth, indicating that it had been exposed to high heat. The deeper we 

 went the stronger the indications of fire became, until finally, when three 

 feet below the surface, we came to a bed of charcoal, or rather what 

 IH'oved to be a charred log lying horizontally. We opened the mound 

 thoroughly, and found that it had three furnaces passing in at the base 

 of the lower side, (the mound is on inclined ground,) and running par- 

 allel, about six feet apart, almost entirely through to the base of the 

 higher side; that is, ranging upward through the mound at the angle 

 of the surface of the solid ground upon which the mound stood. They 

 had been formed by first digging trenches into the earth, two feet wide 

 and eighteen inches deep. Over these, rude arches had been, thrown, 

 formed of irregular masses of tempered claj', probably sun-dried. Some 

 of these masses we took out entire. They are about as large as a man 

 could handle conveniently, and having been immediately in contact 

 with the lire, are burned very hard. 



In the spaces formed between these furnace trenches, and near the 

 center of the mound, were found two small piles of human bones, (one 

 pile in each space,) which seemed to have been tlirown together without 

 regard to regularity. I do not think there could have been more than 

 about two skeletons in each pile. They were completely charred by the 

 heat from the furnaces, and consequently were very tender to handle. 

 On drying out they became much harder. From the three main fur- 

 nace trenches went up a large number of small flues, eig,ht or ten inches 

 in diameter, whose walls had also been formed of tempered clay, and 

 were now burned very hard. At some points they rose directly toward 

 the surface of the mound, while from others they wound and twisted 

 about through it in various directions, all skillfully x)lanned with a view 

 to conveying the heat to all parts of the pile. 



liunning through the mound horizontally, at different elevations, 

 were large logs still retaining their entire shape, but cojupletely charred. 

 We traced one from end to end, eighteen inches in diameter and twen- 

 ty-two feet long. The ends showed that they had been burned off to 

 make the piece the desired length, and their great irregularity of out- 

 line led me to think that the operation had been performed while the 

 log was yet green, and retained its sap. The burning had evidently 

 been forced by placing dry pieces of wood across the log and keeping 



