288 General Notes. 
spoke of the serpent-mound in Adams county, Ohio, which has 
recently come into possession of the Peabody Museum of American 
Archeology and Ethnology, at Cambridge, Mass. This mound was 
first brought to general knowledge by Messrs. Squire and Davis in 
1849, previous to which time it had only a local reputation. It 
was then covered with forests, and has since been ploughed over a 
number of times and devoted to crops. The mound is lowest at the 
tail and increases in height toward the head, and varies from four 
.to nine feet; in width it varies from eleven to twenty-one feet, and 
its length is about fifteen hundred feet. The serpent makes four or 
five convolutions, running north and south, and the tail ends in a 
triple coil. In front of the mouth is an oval mound, as though the 
serpent were about to swallow an egg—as the lecturer expressed it. 
On each side of the neck are two other mounds—one natural, grow- 
ing out of the decay of an enormous oak tree, and the other arti- 
- ficial. Near the tail is another mound, built up from the white 
clay bottom, over which is a heavy layer of stones—not the lime- 
stone of the surface, but a sandstone brought from a creek a quarter 
of a mile away. In this mound, at a depth of from two to five feet, 
occur a considerable number of intrusive burials ; but in the centre, 
lying at length on four inches of wood-ashes, was found the skele- 
ton of a chief six feet in height, with a brain capacity greater than 
that of Daniel Webster. The speaker believed the mound to have 
been built in honor of this chief. The skeleton is in good condition, 
and is now preserved in the Museum at Cambridge. No weapon 
was found in the mound and no ornament, except one fresh-water 
clam-shell. 
