﻿Petrified Human Bones found in a Mound, Etc. 



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IV. The details of the history of the excavations are promised the 

 Society by Mr. Robert Brown, Jr., who furnished the necessary funds for 

 it. Yet I take the liberty of placing here a few points which I got from 

 Mr. Harrison in regard to the circumstances surrounding and the position 

 of these skeletons. These points, labor under the difficulty of all "word 

 of mouth,"' having been twice repeated, with considerable time interven- 

 ing for play of memory, and lack the exactness of notes taken on the spot. 

 However, if there has been no mistake, the appearances indicated that a 

 vault occupied a position near the centre of the base of the mound; in this 

 vault two complete skeletons were found laying on their backs, or quite 

 nearly in that position, covered with pieces of rough, partially burnt 

 limestone. 



V. Having thus far considered the facts as they appear, the next 

 endeavor will be to explain them, and not only account for these various 

 phenomena, but connect them into a series, and show the order of their 

 occurrence, and how their condition is due to natural causes acting on 

 them and their immediate surroundings. Let us assume, then, that this 

 mound w as built over these bodies — how built ? Probably in the usual 

 way in mounds of similar character: first, the body placed in position, then 

 the vault built around it and then the mound erected over it. In this 

 instance the bodies were placed, likely, exactly where found, with the 

 bones in a wliolc condition and covered with flesh. 1 do not think the 

 fractures were produced before death, because quite a number of other 

 bones of the same lot were crushed in similarly from the anterior surface, and 

 even the upper part of the tibia, protected posteriorly as it is by soft parts, 

 could not be so mashed and driven in anteriorly during life when the soft 

 parts form such an unresisting base. The bones then were whole and cov- 

 ered with flesh ; here time is required in the story. The flesh decays and at 

 last is all gone; the bones begin to go, when some support ol the vault has 

 decayed and the stony roof falls upon the skeleton with sudden force, the 

 bones are broken. Where ? How ? Broken on the anterior surface, for 

 this surface is turned up, and consequently gets the shock. The surface, 

 too, is cracked and driven in or the bone broken in pieces. The stony 

 roof having thus fallen with a shock on the skeletons, it finds a resting 

 place on them, and in turn is pressed on by dirt above. Degeneration of 

 the bony tissue continued, but the constant pressure served to keep the 

 splintered fragments together ; there is room here for a difference of opin- 

 ion in regard to the nature of the application of the force. It might be 

 claimed that this fractured condition could result from pressure applied 



