22 MOUND BUEIAL— ILLINOIS. 



Newark. There is another on a branch of Hargus's Creek, a few miles to 

 the northeast of Circleville. There were several not very far from the 

 town of Chillicothe. If these mounds were sometimes used as cemeteries 

 of distinguished persons, they were also used as monuments with a view 

 of perpetuating the recollection of some great transaction or event. In 

 the former not more generally than one or two skeletons are found; in the 

 latter none. These mounds are like those of earth, in form of a cone, com- 

 posed of small stones on which no marks of tools were visible. In them 

 some of the most interesting articles are found, such as urns, ornaments of 

 copper, heads of spears, &c, of the same metal, as well as medals of copper 

 and pickaxes of horneblende; * * * works of this class, compared with 

 those of earth, are few, and they are none of them as large as the mounds 

 at Grave Creek, in the town of Circleville, which belong to the first class. 

 I saw one of these stone tumuli which had been piled on the surface of the 

 earth on the spot where three skeletons had been buried in stone coffins, 

 beneath the surface. It was situated on the western edge of the hill on 

 which the "walled town" stood, on Paint Creek. The graves appear to 

 have been dug to about the depth of ours in the present times. After the 

 bottom and sides were lined with thin flat stones, the corpses were placed 

 in these graves in an eastern and western direction, and large flat stones 

 were laid over the graves; then the earth which had been dug out of the 

 graves was thrown over them. A huge pile of stones was placed over the 

 whole. It is quite probable, however, that this was a work of our present 

 race of Indians. Such graves are more common in Kentucky than Ohio. 

 No article, except the skeletons, was found in these graves ; and the skele- 

 tons resembled very much the present race of Indians." 



The mounds of Sterling County, Illinois, are described by W. C. 

 Ilolbrook,* as follows : 



" I recently made an examination of a few of the many Indian mounds 

 found on Rock River, about two miles above Sterling, 111. The first one 

 opened was an oval mound about 20 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 7 feet high. 

 In the interior of this I found a dolmen or quadrilateral wall about 10 feet 

 long, 4 feet high, and 4£ feet wide. It had been built of lime-rock from a 



•Anier. Natural., 1877, xi, No. 11, p. 688. 



