420 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



to the body, the bones of the hand touching a small conical mass of 

 earth, which i)roved to be a kind of vault similar to that in the Criel 

 mound (No. 1) above described. This was formed of a mortar or cement, 

 but the contents, which must have been animal or vegetable, were com- 

 pletely decayed. It was yet unbroken and barely large enough to have 

 covered a squatting skeleton. 



On the river bottom northwest of the preceding are the remains of a 

 small inclosure, which seems to have been a square or parallelogram (E, 

 PI. xxvii), part of the north side having been washed away by the river. 

 The remaining portion extends 420 feet along the river, the width being 

 now about 100 feet. It is probable thei'e never was a northern wall, the 

 river forming the boundary on this side. The remaining works of the 

 group are on the higher terrace on the opposite side of the river. 

 Mound No. 12 is directly north of inclosure G on the opposite side. It 

 is circular, 50 feet in diameter, and after long cultivation is now but 2 

 feet high, composed entirely of sandy soil. 



Mound No. 13, a little southwest of No. 12, nieasm-ed 35 feet in diam- 

 eter and about 2 in height. Nothing of interest was found in either of 

 these two. 



Inclosure F, of which no trace now remains, was, according to the 

 old settlers, a circle of about 65 feet diameter on the margin of a slight 

 terrace directly opposite inclosure C. There was an inside ditch. 



Moving down the river toward the southwest, we next reach a num- 

 ber of works which seem to be more or less connected. 



The first and most important Is the inclosure G, shown on an enlarged 

 scale in Fig. 294. This is one of the best preserved and most interest- 

 ing of the so-called "sacred enclosures" in the Kanawha valley. It is 

 a parallelogram with slightly rounded comers, the longer direction 

 being a little west of north and east of soiith; the length, measiired 

 from center to center of the wall, is 420 feet, width 150 feet. There is 

 an interior ditch and the single entrance is at the south end. On the 

 eastern side, where it has never been plowed over, the vertical distance 

 from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the wall is from 4 to 6 feet; 

 at other points from 2 to 3 feet. The interior area is somewhat higher 

 than the outside surface and slightly rounded up toward the center. 

 Close by the eastern side is a narrow ravine nearly 50 feet deep, 

 through which runs a little rivulet known as Smith's branch. 



The point marked a in the wall of the inclosure is the reputed site 

 of an ancient walled well. Excavation revealed a pile of large, flat, 

 angular stones. The water from the ditch runs through the embank- 

 ment here and discharges itself over the bluff. 



A number of other excavations were made in this embankment in 

 order to ascertain its composition. At the point b was a cache, a cir- 

 cular pit about 6 feet in diameter and 7 deep, the sides plastered 

 with clay, burned hard. This was nearly full of earth, carried in mainly 

 by the plow. In the bottom, among what appeared to be decayed wood 



