ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 225 
This mound, as are five of the others, is square or nearly square, with a flat 
summit-plateau, the sides approximately facing the cardinal points. The 
heights of the mounds are as follows: 
Mound A—14 feet 6 inches. Mound E— 5 feet 1 inch. 
Mound B— $8 feet 6 inches. Mound F— 9 feet 3 inches. 
Mound C—10 feet 2 inches. Mound G—11 feet 6 inches. 
Mound D— 9 feet 10 inches. 
Permission to dig into these mounds is at present unobtainable, though most 
of them have been investigated, apparently to a very limited extent, with one 
exception (Mound C) to be referred to in due course. The humps, however, 
have been dug considerably, owing, perhaps, to their convenient size. Under 
the summit-plateau of Mound G were buried the dead of the Twenty-eighth 
Illinois Infantry, prior to their removal to the National Cemetery nearby. The 
traces of the burial trenches in this mound might be mistaken for vestiges of 
former investigation were not the facts a matter of history. 
Mound C, elliptical in outline, was dug into in 1899 and a most remarkable 
pipe was discovered in it. An excellent account of the work, by Col. Cornelius 
Cadle, who conducted it, is given in Records of the Past (July, 1902, p. 218 
et seq.), the height of the mound as stated by him, namely, 10 feet 2 inches, exactly 
tallying with our measurement.’ 
Colonel Cadle, in the selection of this particular mound for investigation, 
evinced excellent judgment or enjoyed great good fortune, since all other mounds 
of the group, being square of base and flat of top, presumably were domiciliary 
and most likely contained no burials. We quote from the account: 
“Continuing the work we reached the center, driving about 2 feet further. 
This cut, commencing at the surface, was driven at a slight angle upward for 
drainage in case of rain, and because I expected to make a ‘find’ on the original 
surface and at the center. Fora space of about 4 by 5 feet in the center, 8 inches 
above the original surface (the surface of the cut), the ground, upon striking it 
with the handle of a shovel, sounded hollow. Going back toward the entrance, 
1 foot from the resounding area, a hole was dug 2 feet deep and across the cut, 
. and with knife and fingers the earth slowly taken away, toward the supposed 
‘hollow.’ Wewere rewarded in an hour or two by finding, first, that this ‘hollow’ 
area had been covered with largelogs. Carefully removing this wood, which was 
. decayed, we found the remains of three bodies, the crania, the vertebra, the arm 
and leg bones; apparently laid upon the surface of the ground before the mound 
was started, either in a sitting position; or possibly the bones had been brought 
there for reinterment, and the burial place had been timbered so as to form a 
cell or room, but the wood in decaying had caused a cave-in, filling up the room. 
1 The account, however, is in error іп two particulars, namely, in stating that the mounds are oval 
as to the bases with one exception (that marked A on our plan), and in assigning to this mound a height 
of 25 feet, which altitude, as we have said in the introduction to this report, would require a part of 
the river bank on which the mound is, to complete. 
19 JOURN. A. М. 8. PHILA., VOL. XVI. 
