GO PAETIAL CREMATION. 



these burned-clay sepulchers were thus raised and examined during the first 

 year of his occupancy, since which time none have been found until 

 recently. * * * During the past season (1872) the plow brought up 

 another fragment of one of these moulds, revealing the impress of a plump 

 human arm. 



" Col. C. W. Jenkes, the superintendent of the Corundum mines, which 

 have recently been opened in that vicinity, advises me thus : 



'."We have Indians all about us, with traditions extending back for 500 

 years. In this time they have buried their dead under huge piles of stones. 

 We have at one point the remains of 600 warriors under one pile, but a 

 grave has just been opened of the following construction: A pit was dug, 

 into which the corpse was placed, face upward ; then over it was moulded a 

 covering of mortar, fitting the form and features. On this was built a hot 

 fire, which formed an entire shield of pottery for the corpse. The breaking 

 up of one such tomb gives a perfect cast of the form of the occupant.' 



"Colonel Jenkes, fully impressed with the value of these archaeological 

 discoveries, detailed a man to superintend the exhumation, who proceeded 

 to remove the earth from the mould, which he reached through a layer of 

 charcoal, and then with a trowel excavated beneath it. The clay was not 

 thoroughly baked, and no impression of the corpse was left, except of the 

 forehead and that portion of the limbs between the ankles and the knees, 

 and even these portions of the mould crumbled. The body had been placed 

 east and west, the head toward the east 'I had hoped,' continues Mr. 

 McDowell, 'that the cast in the clay would be as perfect as one I found 51 

 years ago, a fragment of which I presented to Colonel Jenkes, with the im- 

 pression of a part of the arm on one side and on the other of the fingers, 

 that had pressed down the soft clay upon the body interred beneath.' The 

 mound-builders of the Ohio Valley, as has'been shown, often placed a layer 

 of clay over the dead, but not in immediate contact, upon which they 

 builded fires ; and the evidence that cremation was often resorted to in their 

 disposition are too abundant to be gainsaid." 



This statement is corroborated by Mr. Wilcox:* 



" Mr. Wilcox also stated that when recently in North Carolina his atten- 



*Pi-oc. Acad. Nat. Sci. PMla.,Nov. 1674, p. 1G8. 



