290 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



art with it. Another, cousiderably smaller, was composed wholly of 

 browu sand, scattered through which were some fragments of pottery 

 and broken animal bones. The third, abont 60 feet in diameter and 

 nearly 10 feet high, was covered to the depth of a foot with brown saud. 

 The remainder was sharp, yellow, river saud; nothing was found in it. 

 The fourth, which is slightly larger than the third, was covered with a 

 layer of brown sand 18 inches thick, the remainder of clay to the base. 

 In the clay, at the depth of 2 feet, lay a single skeleton. Nothing else 

 was discovered. 



TALLADEGA COUNTY. 



Four miles southeast of Talladega is Cragdale, on the bank of Talla- 

 dega creek, the site of a former Creek settlement. Dr. W. Taylor 

 says that when he came to this place with his father, he being then 

 bnt a boy, many of the Indian houses were still standing. He also 

 says that it was a custom of these Indians to bury in the corners of 

 their houses, not more than 18 inches or 2 feet below the floor; that he 

 had frequently exa-mined these deposits and found with the bones shell 

 beads, carved shell ornaments, pottery, and sometimes as many as 

 three skeletons in a place, and occasionally as many as three corners 

 thus occupied. He also says the Creeks fi-eqneutly used mussel-shells 

 for spoons. 



JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Near Jonesboro is a small group of mounds on tlie plantation of Mr. 

 N. D. Talley, Sec. S, T. 19 S., E. i W., of the Huntsville meridiau. The 

 valley of the small creek that flows along the northern and eastern 

 sides of the field in which the group is located is quite wide at this 

 point, the round, knob-like hills which form its boundary standing at 

 quite a distance from the mounds. 



The surface of the field immediately around the mountls is compara- 

 tively flat, pitching in a steep bank to the water, a few feet north of 

 mound No. 1. (Fig. ITS.) Northeast of this mound the surface has the 

 appearance of having been dug or more probably washed out by the 

 creek. East of mound 3 is what might be called the first bottom land, 

 about 4 feet lower than the surface of the field. This point is above the 

 overflow of the small creek, while farther down the valley the land is 

 frequently inundated and had been under water a short time previous 

 to examination. 



A plat of the group is given in Fig. 178. No. 1, is an oblong mound, 

 measuring 30 feet east and west, and about 4 feet high at the highest 

 point. A few small i)ine and hackberry trees have grown on the sides 

 since it was built. It is made of the same red, sandy soil as that found 

 in the field in which it stands. Only a few coals and a shovelful of 

 ashes were found in it, which had probably been thrown there at the 

 time it was built and may have been scrajjed up from the surface of 

 the field with the rest of the material for the mound, but in hunting the 



