232 Grave Mounds in North Carolina and East Tennessee. (March, 
sider it disgraceful to their ancestry. But facts are always of in- 
terest in the history of any people, however civilized they may 
become. 
The natives of most of the Polynesian islands, I believe, are 
willing and capable of the highest grade of improvement in civ- 
ilization, under proper treatment by nations of greater power 
and higher mental attainment. 
"A* 
GRAVE MOUNDS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND EAST 
TENNESSEE. 
BY DR. CYRUS THOMAS, 
Bae EVING that the description of a new class of grave mounds, 
recently found in North Carolina and East Tennessee, mif 
be of interest to the readers of the AMERICAN NATURALIST, I seth 
by permission of the chief of the Bureau of Ethnology, the hi- 
lowing extract from my report of the mound explorations of the 
past season. 
“ The Nelson Mound.”—This mound, so insignificant in outward , 
appearance as scarcely to attract any notice, was located (for it 2 i 
longer exists) on the farm of Rev. T. F. Nelson, in Caldwell prei] 
N. C., on the bottom land of the Yadkin, about one h 2i | 
yards from the river bank. It was almost a true circle pe 
thirty-eight feet in diameter, but not exceeding at any -= 
eighteen inches in height. The thorough excavation 
vealed the fact that the builders of the mound had first dug 
cular pit, with perpendicular margin, to the depth of thre 
and thirty-eight feet in diameter, then deposited their dead “it 
manner hereafter shown, and afterwards covered them aa 
ing a slight mound above the pit. val of O | 
A plan of the pit, drawn at the time (after the Te m 
dirt), showing the stone graves and skeletons, is given n rere bilt i 
The walled graves or vaults and altar-shaped mas? t to hol! 
of water-worn boulders and clay or earth merely suho —— f 
them in place. i we 
No. 1, a stone grave or vault standing exactly 1 ~ be f 
‘the pit. In this case, a small circular hole, 4 little One E 
fe 
ach 
ee 
center Ý 
feet in diameter and extending down three feet below plac d 
tom of the large pit, had been dug, the body of around ti f 
perpendicularly upon its feet-and the wall built up ion 
