92 BURIAL MOUNDS OF THE NORTHERN SECTIONS 
which fact, as he informs us, checked his further advance, as he feared 
he might be made a captive by them. As further and conclusive evi- 
dence of this, we have only to state that the remains of their cabins in 
the vicinity of the mines were found in 1834 with trees from 2 to 3 feet 
in diameter growing over them. The old shafts were discovered in 
which they worked, as also some of the machinery they used.! Be 
this supposition correct or not, if the articles we have mentioned were 
of European workmanship, or if the material was obtained of civilized 
people, we must take for granted, until evidence to the contrary is pro- 
duced, that the mound in which they were found was built after the 
commencement of the sixteenth century, hence by Indians, and in all 
probability by the Cherokees. 2 
Our next argument is the discovery in the ancient works of this region 
of evidences that the habits and customs of the builders were similar 
to those of the Cherokees and some of the immediately surrounding 
tribes. 
T have already alluded to the evidence found in the mound opened by 
Professor Carr, that it had once supported a building similar to the 
council house observed by Bartram on a mound at the old Cherokee 
town, Cowe. Both were on mounds, both were circular, both were 
built on posts set in the ground at equal distances from each other, and 
each had a central pillar. 
As confirming this statement of Bartram, we are informed in Ram- 
sey’s Annals of Tennessee? that when Colonel Christian marched 
against the Cherokee towns, in 1776, he found in the center of each “a 
circular tower rudely built and covered with dirt, 50 feet in diameter, 
and about 20 feet high. This tower was used as acouncil house and as 
a place for celebrating the green-corn dance and other national cere- 
monials.” Lawson, who traveled through North Carolina in 1700, says :* 
“They [the Indians] oftentimes make of this shell [alluding to a cer- 
tain large sea shell] a sort of gorge, which they wear about their neck 
in a string, soit hangs on their collar, whereon is sometimes engraven a 
cross or some odd sort of figure which comes next in their fancy.” Bev- 
erly, speaking of the Indians of Virginia, says:* ‘‘ Of this shell they 
also make round tablets of about 4 inches in diameter, which they pol- 
ish as smooth as the other, and sometimes they etch or grave thereon 
circles, stars, a half-moon, or any other figure, suitable to their fancy.” 
Now it so happens that, in the same mound in which the iron speci- 
mens before alluded to were found, and in other mounds in the same 
section, the Bureau assistants discovered shell ornaments precisely of 
the character described by these old writers. Some of them were smooth 
and without any devices engraved on them, but with holes for insert- 
' Jones, Southern Indians, p. 18. 
2 Page 169. 
* History of Carolina, Raleigh, reprint, 1850, p. 315, 
+ History of Virginia, London, 1705, p. 58. 
