GASS ON MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



93 



Its diameter at the base is about sixty feet and height three and one-half 

 feet above the natural grade. Having been many years under cultiva- 

 tion, its height has doubtless been thereby somewhat redxiced. The form 

 is not conical, but considerably flattened, as shown by the diagram, Fig. 

 8. It is a so-called double mound, there being in the central portion two 

 graves, extending east and west, and parallel to each other, separated by 

 three to fom- feet of earth, and designated by A and B, (Figs. 8 and 9.) 

 Each grave is about six feet wide and nine to ten feet long, and exca- 

 vated to a depth of two and one-half feet below the natural surface, 

 reaching to the hard clay in the middle of the excavation, which is slop- 

 ing on all sides, giving it a concave form, though flattened at the bot- 

 tom. The actual mound raised over the whole is now only three to four 

 feet above the original surface, and presents somewhat the form of a 

 cone. If we divide the mound by a line passing from east to west through 

 the center, the grave A is in the southern and the grave B in the northern 

 half. 



West. f 



^5«<?3Oe=^«P0CX^ 



South. 



£V(4f. g 

 FIG. 9. — Scale, about 10 feet to one inch. 



EXPLORATIONS OF 1874. 



When, in the latter part of 1874, I, with the assistance of W. En- 

 gelbrecht, E. Borgelt and H. Decker, who were at that time theological 

 students, explored the other mounds of this group, I opened at the same 

 time the southern grave. A, of this mound, the details of which work I 

 here give in full, from notes taken at the time. 



We made an opening several feet in width, and, as we afterward found, 

 three or four feet to the south of the grave, A. At the depth of one foot 

 we found a scattered layer of limestones (a), under which was a stratum of 

 earth about one foot thick. At the southern side of this opening, one 

 and one-half feet from the surface, we discovered two human skeletons (b). 

 From the condition of these skeletons, and from their arrangement, and 

 the nature of tlie objects found associated with them, it is clearly shown 

 that they belong to our century, and not to the age of the mound build- 



