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ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 397 
5 feet and 6 feet in height, respectively, and each about 40 feet in diameter, 
according to the estimate of our agent. Permission refused. 
MOUND NEAR Hoxar Ferry, RHEA COUNTY. 
About one-quarter mile westerly from Hoyal Ferry, in a cultivated field, on 
property belonging to Mrs. Harriet W. Hoyal, of Spring City, Tenn., is a mound 
5 feet 9 inches in height and 35 feet in diameter. The mound had been trenched 
into from two sides and some of the margin had been plowed away, but much 
of the mound still remained intact. 
Nearly centrally we put down a trench 12 feet 6 inches in length, and averaging 
about 7 feet in width. A short distance down were fragments of human bones 
in the old digging, and a knife or an arrowhead, of flint, also a triangular point 
of black flint, about 3.5 inches in length. 
The digging continued through the brown soil which composed the mound 
without reaching fire place or burial, until at a depth slightly more than 6 feet 
small parts of a human skull were discovered, with remains of teeth. At a dis- 
tance from where the skull had been, with no bones intervening, were decaying 
fragments of two femora, side by side, the space between which and the skull 
being about what would be expected to accommodate the remains of the trunk. 
Farther along no trace of leg-bones or of the feet were discovered. Near the 
skull, or what was left of it, was considerable red pigment and the following 
objects grouped together: two piercing implements of bone, in fragments; a 
disintegrating mass, probably what remained of a hoe of sandstone; a small 
triangular point of flint; a graceful arrowhead, resembling a drill, also of flint; 
a celt of shale, about 4.3 inches in length; a tool of shale, of the kind found by 
us in the mound at Hiwassee Island, 4.5 inches long and 1.4 inch in width, having 
a curved, blunt edge at one end and a perforation about .75 inch from the other 
end. We speak advisedly of this implement as a tool, since the blunt edge gives 
evidence of the fact, being rubbed and striated on half of each side. 
At a depth of 6 feet 6 inches, compact, yellow clay was encountered, evidently 
previously undisturbed. No base-line was distinguishable, and the bottom of 
the mound probably had been somewhere between the yellow clay and where the 
burial was found. 
Three intelligent boys, sons of the tenant cultivating this place, said that a 
man traveling down the river in a house-boat in search of antiquities (the agent 
of a dealer, no doubt) recently had visited the place and had bought from them 
all the *Injun spikes" they could find for him on the surface. They added the 
significant information that the man also was acquiring quantities of fragments 
of flint. 
MOUNDS ON THE SPENCE PLACE, RHEA COUNTY. 
About one-quarter mile back from the river, on the Spence Place, Mr. Albion 
Spence, owner and resident thereon, on the beginning of the slope of the hills, 
some in sight from the river, others masked by light woods at the time of our 
