] 88 APPENDIX. 



" The body of the person here buried was laid upon tlie surface of the ground, with his face upwards, 

 and his feet pointing to the southwest. From the appearance of several pieces of charcoal and bits of 

 partially burned fossil coal, and the black color of the earth, it would seem that the funeral obsequies had 

 been celebrated by fire; and while the ashes were yet hot and smoking, a circle of these flat stones had 

 been laid around and over the body. The circular covering was about eight feet in diameter ; and the stones 

 yet look black, as if stained by fire and smoke. This circle of stones seems to have been the niicTeus over 

 which the mound was formed, as immediately over them is heaped the common earth of the adjacent plain. 

 At the time of openingt i, the height was 6 feet, and diameter between 30 and 40. It has every appear- 

 ance of being as old as any in the neighborhood, and was, at the first settlement of Marietta, covered with 

 large trees. It seems to have been made for this single personage, as the remains of one skeleton only were 

 discovered. The bones were much decayed, and many of them cumbled to dust on exposure to the air." 



Engravings of the silver-plated discs and also of the embossed silver plate sup- 

 ,!„_„ posed by Dr. Hildreth to have been a sword orna- 



* •' I 1 / . ment, are herewith presented. These articles have 



" 1 been critically examined, and it is beyond doubt 

 that the copper " bosses " are absolutely plated, not 

 ; - simply overlaid, with silver. Between the copper 



[; ; ^ 1 1 I I [; and the silver exists a connection, such as, it seems 



S I j ''[ ' I to me, could only be produced by heat ; and if it is admitted that 

 3 ! ; i I ! these are genuine remains of the mound-builders, it must, at the 

 IllllilggJ yi'ii,?:,,:!, J same time, be admitted that they possessed the difficult art of 

 Fig. 72. plating one metal upon another. There is but one alternative, 



viz., that they had occasional or constant intercourse with a people advanced in 

 the arts, from whom these articles were obtained. Again, if Dr. Hildreth is not 

 mistaken, oxydized iron, or steel, was also discovered in connection with the above 

 remains ; from which also follows, as a necessity upon the previous assumption, 

 the extraordinary conclusion that the moimd-builders were acquainted loitli the use of 

 iron, — the conclusion being, of course, subject to the improbable alternative already 

 mentioned. 



Leading, therefore, as they do, to such extraordinary conclusions, it is of the 

 utmost importance that every fact and circumstance connected with these remains 

 should be narrowly examined. If there is a reasonable way of accounting for their 

 presence, under the circumstances above described, without involving us in these 

 conclusions, unsustained as they are by collateral facts, we are justified upon every 

 recognised rule of evidence in adopting it as the nearest approximation to the truth. 

 The existing tribes of Indians, it has been demonstrated, recently and remotely, 

 often buried in the mounds, placing the arms and ornaments, in short, whatever 

 was valued by the possessor while living, in the grave with him at his death. It 

 has been shown that in some instances they opened the mounds to the depth of 

 six or seven feet, and buried at or below their bases. — {Aiicient Monuments of the 

 Mississippi Valley, pp. 146, 147, 149.) It has been shown, also, that partial burial 

 by fire was occasionally practised by them, or by races succeeding the builders of 

 the mounds. That it was a common custom among the Indians to cover their 

 dead with stones, is also well known. The occurence of these remains in the 

 position above described, does not, therefore, necessarily establish that they be- 

 longed to the race of the mounds. 



