Exploration of the Porter Mound, Frankfort, Ross Co., O. 27 



EXPLORATION OF THE PORTER MOUND, FRANKFORT, 

 ROSS COUNTY, OHIO. 



By Warren K. Moorehead. 



[Read February, 1889.] 



This mound is situated within sight of the village of Frankfort. It 

 is one of a group of seven mounds. The dimensions are as follows : 

 Length no feet; width 62 feet; height 6 feet. It is stated by old 

 residents that the mound was once twenty feet high. 



Mr. Till Porter graciously accorded permission to open this struc- 

 ture, and accordingly work was begun on the morning of August 8, 

 1888. We were five days in completing this mound, a force of seven 

 men and three teams being employed. There was a large sink hole 

 near the mound, (the earth for its construction was probably taken 

 from this depression), and we agreed to fill this hole up with the earth 

 from the mound. For this reason we engaged teams as well as 

 diggers. 



We began on the south side. A trench nearly as wide as the 

 mound itself was begun on the original surface. This was carried 

 through the mound. Four feet from the outer edge on the south side 

 we came upon a layer of coarse gravel boulders, two feet in width 

 and three inches in thickness. From its curvature we judged it 

 extended all around the mound. This conjecture was afterward con 

 firmed by meeting with the circle on the north and east sides. About 

 fourteen feet from the circle of stones, placed in a fine bed of sand, 

 aperture downward, .was a sea shell (Pyrula?) covering a few 

 decayed human bones — fragments of a skull, but nothing whole, nor 

 were any of the bones over one inch in diameter. Near this one, but 

 placed near the surface of the mound, was a smaller shell of the same 

 species. 



Thursday afternoon, at about thirty feet from the stone circle we 

 made the most remarkable discovery we were destined to participate 

 in. Between two copper plates was a mass of copper earrings, beads, 

 and decayed wood and cloth. These plates were placed horizontally, 

 about an inch apart. The smaller one was uppermost. The sizes were 

 9^x7 inches and 8x6 inches. Between them were twenty copper 

 earrings or brooches. Around the center of some of the brooches 



