MONUMENTS OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. 107 



in a circle, and accompanied by a smaller one. It is perhaps the largest and 

 most perfect on the river. It is five hundred feet in circumference at the base, 

 two hundred and twenty-five feet in circumference at the summit, and thirty-four 

 feet high, — slightly oblong. It is covered with stumps, briars, etc., having recently 

 been brought under cultivation. In April last, while ploughing over the small mound, 

 an urn was discovered, a sketch of which is enclosed. It holds forty-six quarts, 

 or nearly twelve gallons. It had a cover fitting closely over the body for about six 

 inches ; this was broken by the plough. The vessel was curiously ornamented, 

 and is probably the largest ever discovered in the valley. It contained a number 

 of large shell beads, much decomposed, about the size and shape of nutmegs. It 

 also contained another article of the same material, about the size of a man's 

 palm, a quarter of an inch thick, and carved in open work ; probably designed 

 for suspension around the neck as a badge or ornament. The ditch around this 

 mound is slight. 



" Still further down the river, upon the opposite side, and some distance south 

 of the road from Camden to Columbia, is the most remarkable ancient work in 

 the valley (O). It is called the ' Indian Ditch.' It occurs at the great bend of 

 the river, and consists of an embankment and ditch carried across the isthmus, 

 cutting oft*, and, with the river, enclosing some hundreds of acres of fine alluvial 

 land. It is about o/te mile in length, and the circuit of the river from one end to 

 the other is between three and four miles. Twenty-one years ago, when 1 first 

 visited it, this ditch was about eight feet deep and the wall of corresponding 

 dimensions : a primitive forest was then growing upon its southern portion, but it 

 is now all under the plough and fast disappearing. The bank is exterior to the 

 ditch, which circumstance seems to conftict with the notion that the work was 

 constructed for defence. It has been suggested, but with no good reason, that it 

 was designed for a '■cut off'' or artificial channel for the river. Whatever its 

 purpose, it was a great undertaking for a rude or savage people. 



" On the opposite side of the river, about two hundred yards below the mouth 

 of Pine-tree creek, is a group of mounds, surrounded by a low embankment (J). 

 One of them has been nearly washed away by the river, and the others have been 

 much reduced by cultivation. The largest is yet twelve or fifteen feet high, with 

 a very wide base. From these mounds are disclosed arrow-heads, axes, urns, and 

 other vestiges of art, accompanied by human bones and the bones of wild animals, 

 and marine shells, all much decayed. As the water washes away the side of 

 the mound on its bank, charcoal, urns, bones, etc., in successive strata, are 

 exposed ; as though it had constituted a cemetery, receiving deposits from time 

 to time, from its commencement to its completion. The strata vary in thickness 

 from six to eighteen inches, and are mixed with much mica, sometimes in large 

 plates. It was long under cultivation in corn, then indigo, and in 1806, when I 

 first saw it, in cotton, which is still cultivated on it. On the large mound stood 

 the overseer's house ; around it, on the smaller piles, were the negro quarters. 



" In the bend of the river nearly opposite the south end of the ' Indian Ditch,' 

 is a mound, perhaps fifteen feet high (K). Little is known respecting it, having 

 been for many years the site of an overseer's house. I obtained a circular stone, 



