MOUNDS, FORTIFICATIONS, AND EARTHWORKS. 



51 



or rubbing paint, or sniootliing the skins of wild animals. I also obtained several 

 highly polished disks of silex from the same localities, which were probably used 

 for similar purposes. These implements may have been employed for grinding 

 paint or crushing corn in the biconcave stone disks, cups, paint bowls, or mortars, 

 which abound in all parts of the valley of the Cumberland and other rivers of 

 Tennessee, one of Avhich, found in the neighborhood of Nashville, is represented 



in Fig. 19. 



Fig. I'J. 



Fig. 20. 



Fig. 19. Biconcave stone disk, cup, paint bowl or mortar, from a stone gr.ave, Valley of Cumberland River, one- 

 fourth the natural size. 



Fig. 20. Celt from a .stone grave within the limits of North Nashville. This highly polished stone chisel or 

 wedge is ten inches in length, and is formed of a bard siliceous stone containing fossil remains. 



I obtained numerous chisels or celts from stone graves within and around the 

 limits of Nashville, one of the most perfect of which is represented in Fig. 20. 



It appears from the testimony of John Haywood, in his "Natural and Aboriginal 

 History of Tennessee," that the mound formerly standing within the limits of North 

 Nashville was carefully examined by Mr. Earle, in 1821, and that, to a certain 

 extent, the structure was similar to that of the mound wliich I explored directly 

 across on the opposite bank of the Cumberland. 



This is said to have been the mound u[)on which Monsieur Charleville had his 

 store in 171-1, when the Shawnees were driven from Cumberland by the Cherokees 

 and Chickasaws. On the 21st of July, 1821, Mr. Earle employed men to work 

 this mound near Nashville, then standing on the ground of David McGavoc, Esq. 

 The mound is described as standing on the west side of the river, and on the north 

 side of French Lick Creek, and about 70 yards from each ; being round at the base, 

 about 30 yards in diameter, and about 10 feet in height. The workmen opened 

 a circular hole about the centre of the summit, and a ditch was dug from 

 thence to the western extremity. They found pottery of Indian fabrication 

 everywhere within the mound; and two or three feet beneath the summit, the jaw- 

 bone of a carnivorous animal, and small fragments of bones, whether human or 

 not could not be determined. About four feet below, they came to a layer of 

 charcoal, or rather black cinders, about two inches deep, extending from the 

 central hole 8 or 10 feet towards the west, and exhibiting an appearance 

 which made it probable that the dirt in which it lay was once the top of the 

 mound, and had been flattened and a large fire made upon it ; and that afterwards 

 the mound had been raised higher by the accumulation of fresh dirt. This dirt 



