578 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



laborer to diggiug holes for the fence-posts; but when the work had 

 progressed as far as the "grave," the spade barely penetrated the sod 

 at its edge, when it came in contact with a stone, which proved, on re- 

 moving the soil covering it, to be a rough, flat sandstone flag, nearly 

 square, 3 inches thick and IS or 20 inches broad. It was thrown aside, 

 and the fence completed. Some time afterwards, on learning that such 

 a stone was found on this point, I concluded to explore the place with 

 the hope of securing a skull or other relic of interest which it may have 

 covered. Investigation soon convinced me that it had not formed any 

 part of the covering of a grave, but had been laid flat on the bare ground. 

 Carefully removing the bushes and earth in which they grew, other 

 similar stones were uncovered, forming together a rude floor or pave- 

 ment 12 feet in length by 8 'in width, somewhat dish-shaped, the center 

 being gradually depressed 10 inches below the edges. The stone first 

 discovered had formed one of the corners of this curious structure. The 

 long axis of the work coincided with the strike of the ridge, exactly 

 north and south ; and the flags of which it was made had been carried 

 up from an outcrop of carboniferous sandstone a mile and a half distant, 

 and were rough and uncut, but fitted together with surprising accuracy. 

 They were reddened and cracked, apparently by long continued heat, 

 and the interstices between them were compactly filled with fine 

 ashes. Upon this pavement or "altar" was a mass of ashes, per- 

 haps a foot thick in the middle, and a little more than filling to a 

 level its basin-like concavity. On the surface of this ash-bed I col- 

 lected fragments of charred bones, constituting parts of three adult 

 human skeletons, among which were considerable portions of three 

 lower jaws, with teeth intact, large pieces of six femurs and pelvic 

 bones, the occipital protuberances of three crania, some bodies of ver- 

 tebrae, and many small j)ieces so burned as to be unrecognizable. The 

 fire which consumed these three skeletons had been smothered be- 

 fore it was exhausted, and while yet glowing, as many large pieces of 

 charcoal were mingled with the bones, and the superincumbent earth in 

 contact with the fire was reddened and partially baked. Interspersed 

 throughout the mass of ashes filling the basin were many small 

 X)iece8 of bone and teeth converted into animal charcoal, and bits of flint, 

 perhaps weapons, shivered and broken by the fierce heat of the pyre. 

 I also observed many minute scales of burnt mica and shell, but found 

 no part of any pipe or other object carved in stone, or of pottery. The 

 mound inclosing this weird " sacrificial altar," after the washing of rains 

 and beating of storms for centuries unnumbered, measured but httle 

 more than 2 feet high by 20 in diameter. The cracked and fire-scarred 

 stones and great quantity of ashes without charcoal, mingled through- 

 out with fragments of calcined bones, considered in connection with the' 

 prominent situation of the "altar," in full view of the valley below and 

 of the highlands around for miles, seem to support the inference that 

 here, at stated times, for a long period, had been practiced the burning 



