56 BURIAL MOUNDS OF THE NORTHERN SECTIONS. 
tended on the back in the bottom of this, amid the rotten fragments of 
a bark coffin, was a decayed human skeleton, fully 7 feet long, with 
head west. No evidence of fire was to be seen, nor were any stone im- 
plements discovered, but lying in a circle just above the hips were fifty 
circular pieces of white perforated shell, each about 1 inchin diameter and 
an eighth of an inch thick. The bones of the left arm lay by the side of 
the body, but those of the right arm, as in one of the mounds heretofore 
mentioned, were stretched at right angles to the body, reaching out to 
a small oven-shaped vault, the mortar or cement roof of which was still 
unbroken, The capacity of this small cireular vault was probably two 
bushels, and the peculiar appearance of the dark-colored deposit therein, 
and other indications, led to the belief that it had been filled with corn 
(maize) in the ear. The absence of weapons would indicate that the in- 
dividual buried here was not a warrior, though a person of some impor- 
tance. 
Mound No. 23 of this group presents some peculiarities worthy of no- 
tice. It is 312 feet in circumference at the base and 25 feet high, cov- 
ered with a second growth of timber, some of the stumps of the former 
growth yet remaining. It is unusually sharp and symmetrical. From 
the top down the material was found to be a light-gray and apparently 
mixed earth, so hard as to require the vigorous use of the pick to pene- 
trate it. At the depth of 15 feet the explorers began to find the casts 
and fragments of poles or round timbers less than a foot in diameter. 
These casts and rotten remains of wood and bark increased in abun- 
dance from this point until the original surface of the ground was 
reached. By enlarging the lower end of the shaft to 14 feet in diameter 
it was ascertained that this rotten wood and bark were the remains of 
what had once been a circular or polygonal, timber-sided, and conical- 
roofed vault. Many of the timbers of the sides and roof, being consid- 
erably longer than necessary, had been allowed to extend beyond the 
points of support often 8 or 10 feet, those on the sides beyond the cross- 
ing and those of the roof downward beyond the wall. Upon the floor 
and amid the remains of the timber were numerous human bones and 
also two whole skeletons, the latter but slightly decayed, though badiy 
crushed by the weight pressing on them, but unaccompanied by an or- 
nament or an implement of any kind. A further excavation of about 4 
feet below the floor, or what was supposed to be the floor, of this vault, 
and below the original surface of the ground, brought to light six cir- 
cular, oven-shaped vaults, each about 3 feet in diameter and the same in 
depth. As these six were so placed as to form a semicircle, it is pre- 
sumed there are others under that portion of the mound not reached by 
the excavation. All were filled with dry, dark dust or decayed sub- 
stances, supposed to be the remains of Indian corn in the ear, as it was 
similar to that heretofore mentioned. In the center of the circle indi- 
cated by the positions of these minor vaults, and the supposed center of 
the base of the mound (the shaft not being exactly central), and but 2 feet 
below the floor of the main vault, and in a fine mortar or cement, were 
