410 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



along the steep face of the luouutain fully a mile, theu across its sharp 

 summit aud a like distance upon the other slope. It is said that it can 

 be traced fully as much farther in such a manner as to connect the ends, 

 and thus inclose a large area of the higher portion of the mountain. 

 Little of this wall is now in place, it rarely being more than 1 or 2 feet 

 in height, but the line of flat rocks strewn over a space of many feet 

 in width, and often far down the mountain slope, indicates material 

 laigely in excess of that in an ordinary stone-wall fence. When dis- 

 covered by the early white rovers of this region, something more than 

 a century ago, many i)()rtious of it were, as affirmed both by history and 

 tradition, intact and 5 or 6 feet wide and high, although amid timbers 

 as large as found elsewhere upon the mountain. 



HOCK CIRCLE. 



On Armstrongs creek, half a mile above its junction with the Ka- 

 nawha, are the remains of an interesting rock heap inside of a circle. 

 The latter is fully 100 feet in diameter, and after the removal of mate- 

 rial therefrom for nearly a half mile of stone fence is still 15 to 20 feet 

 wide and 3 to 5 feet high. Central within this are the remains of what 

 the oldest living white men and the early records and traditions of this 

 region represent as having been a rock heap 25 or 30 feet in diameter 

 at the base and 10 feet high, and similar to that shown in Fig. 2.SS, 

 except that the cap or cover was still in place when first observed. 

 The explanation of this is supiiosed to be found in the fact that there 

 was a passageway large enough to admit a man extending from the 

 outside to the inner space. 



KANAWHA COl^NTY. 

 CUFTOX WIIRKS. 



The Kanawha, as is usual witli streams in hilly sections, meanders 

 between bluffs, leaving a bottom now (m this side and then on that. 

 Such places have ever been the chosen haunts of the aboriginal tribes. 

 A typical one of these bottoms is on the south side of the river, on 

 which the present village of Clifton is located. Excavations made 

 here for cellars, walls, aud other purposes seldom fail to bring to light 

 human bones, fragments of pottery, stone implements, and other evi- 

 dences of previous occupancy. Several days were spent in making 

 excavations here, finding marked uniformity in the earth and its con- 

 tents. The sandy soil, which extends to the depth of 4 and 5 feet, was 

 found to be literally filled with charcoal, ashes, fragments of pottery, 

 entire aud broken stone implements, etc. Although resembling in 

 character a refuse heap, it is probably a village site or camping ground, 

 occupied continuously, f>r season after season for a long time, by a band 

 of aborigines, but so iar back in the past that the entire area was 

 overgrown with the largest timber of the valley when first visited by 



