30 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



wherein very small people had been deposited in tombs 

 or coffins of stone. The greatest length of the skeletons 

 was nineteen inches. The bones were strong and well 

 set, and the whole frames were well formed. Some of 

 the people appeared to have lived to a great age, their 

 teeth being worn smooth and short, while others were 

 full and long. The graves were about two feet deep ; 

 the coffins were of stone, and made by laying a flat stone 

 at the bottom, one at each side, or each end, and one 

 over the corpse. The dead were all buried with their 

 heads toward the east, and in regular order, laid on their 

 backs, and with their hands on their breasts. In the 

 bend of the left arm was found a cruse, or vessel, that 

 would hold nearly a pint, made of ground stone, or 

 shell, of a grey colour, in which were found two or 

 three shells. One of these skeletons had about its 

 neck ninety-four pearl beads. Near one of these bury- 

 ing-places was the appearance of the site of an ancient 

 town. 



Webber, in his ' Romance of Natural History,' refers 

 to the diminutive sarcophagi found in Kentucky and 

 Tennessee ; and he describes these receptacles to be about 

 three feet in length, by eighteen inches deep, and con- 

 structed, bottom, sides, and top, of flat, unhewn stones. 

 These he conjectures to be the places of sepulture of 

 a pigmy race, that became extinct at a period beyond 

 reach even of the tradition of the so-called Indian 

 aborigines. 



Newspapers for 1866 tell us that General Milroy, who 

 had been spending much time in Smith County, Tennes- 

 see, attending to some mining business, discovered near 

 Watertown in that county some remarkable graves, which 

 were disclosed by the washing of a small creek in its 



