3^ 



were located with a similar regard to beauty of outlook and conspicu- 

 ousness. Llewellyn Jewett, in "Grave Mounds and their Contents," 

 writes as follows : 



"The situations chosen by the early inhabitants for the burial of their 

 dead were, in many instances, grand in the extreme. Formed in the 

 tops of the highest hills, or on lower, but equally imposing positions, the 

 grave mounds commanded a glorious prospect of hill and dale, wood and 

 water, rock and meadow, of many miles in extent, and on every side, 

 stretching as far as the eye could reach, while they themselves could 

 be seen from afar oflf in every direction by the tribes who liad raised 

 them, while engaged either in hunting or other pursuits. They became, 

 indeed, landmarks for the tribes, and were, there can be little doubt, 

 used by them as places of assembling." 



Permission having been generously granted by the owner of the 

 property, Mr. Chas. Roberts, to make such use of the mound as the 

 Association should see fit, it was at first proposed to remove it layer by 

 layer with plow and scraper, in order to expose its whole floor at once, 

 hut a careful survey soon made it apparent that such a mode of pro- 

 cedure would be out of the question owing to the number of trees, 

 some of considerable size, scattered over its surface, and their inter- 

 lacing roots. Work was accordingly begun by carrying an adit from 

 the northwest side and sinking a central shaft of the dimensions of 

 about four by eight feet, the longer diameter of the shaft running 

 north and south. In the side adit, which was dug first, nothing was 

 disclosed till the floor of the mound was reached, when just before 

 coming to the natural surface of the soil, perhaps a foot above it, the 

 trench passed through a layer of white ashes. This layer was after- 

 ward found to extend from nearly the outer margin of the base of the 

 mound, across its whole floor, arching up over the center so as to pre- 

 sent a convex surface above. Its thickness varied from half an inch 

 to one and a half inches. The layer presented near the center of the 

 mound an almost stony hardness, causing it to come off in large flakes 

 to which masses of the surrounding clay often adhered. When the 

 clay was cleaned off the layer disclosed a mottled surface of a reddish 

 brown color. The hardness wag apparently due to the lime of which 

 the ashes seemed to be mainly composed, and the reddish brown surface 

 might have been produced by a covering of bark placed over the ash 

 layer, or more probably in the manner related in the following passage 

 from "Grave Mounds and their Contents," describing the mode of 

 burial probably practiced by the ancient Celts: 



"It not unfrequentlj' happens that the spot where the funeral fire has 

 been lit can very clearly be perceived. In these instances the ground 



