By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



177 



are the remains of many smaller ones in various stages of decay ; 

 and around the gigantic tomb of Alyattes, stand a multitude of 

 more humble barrows which cover the remains of the Lydian 

 Kings, 1 and (may I not remind the reader ?) around Silbury, many 

 sepulchral tumuli of smaller dimensions stud the downs on all 

 sides. 2 There is also a very large tumulus at Grave Creek in 

 Virginia, rising to the height of 70 feet, and measuring 1000 feet 

 in circumference round the base. Another near Miamisburg, 

 Montgomery County, Ohio, which is 68 feet in perpendicular 

 height, and 852 feet in circumference at the base, and contains 

 311,353 cubic feet of earth: and that at Selserstown, Mississippi, 

 which is computed to cover six acres of ground : in addition to the 

 innumerable smaller mounds which stud the prairies ; those in Ross 

 County, Ohio, amounting to about 10,000, while they are scarcely 

 less numerous in Virginia and the Kenhawas and other districts. 3 

 Again, beyond the Alleghanies exist many large sepulchral tumuli, 

 the work of unknown nations ; and many of them have been found 

 to contain human bones. There is one near Wheeling 70 feet in 

 height, between 30 and 40 rods in circumference, and 180 feet at 

 the top. There is also a numerous group at the Chaokin, about 

 200 in all, the largest of which is 90 feet high, and 800 yards in 

 circuit : the skulls found in these mounds are said to resemble those 

 found in Peru. 4 In the Western States, Davies and Squier have made 

 accurate measurements of 90 tumuli or mounds, and have excavated 

 115; and as a climax to the evidence in favour of the sepulchral 

 theory here at least, I may state that among the larger mounds in 

 the Southern States of the American Union which have been opened 

 by Dickenson, one of them proved to be a vast cemetery, containing 

 many thousand human skeletons? In South America too, vast 

 mounds of an irregular or more frequently oblong shape, penetrated 

 by galleries running at right angles to each other, were heaped by 



1 Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, vol. xxiii, 

 2 Stukeley's Abury, p. 40. 

 3 " Ancient chambered Tumuli," by Rev. H. M. Scarth, p. 7. Lost Solar 

 System of the Ancients discovered, ii., 255. 



4 Lost Solar System of the Ancients discovered, vol. ii., 243. 

 5 Lost Solar System of the Ancients discovered, ii., 256. 



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