APPENDIX, 379 
No. 2. 
Since my return to the United States, I have seen the following interesting 
letters in the National Intelligencer, on American Antiquities, from Mr. Colcraft. 
It is to be hoped that he will shortly favor the public with an accurate drawing 
of the characters on the tablet. 
Grave Creek Flats, (Va.) August 23, 1843. 
I have devoted several days to the examination of the antiquities of this place 
and its vicinity, and find them to be of even more interest than was anticipated. 
The most prominent object of curiosity is the great tumulus, of which notices 
have appeared in western papers ; but this heavy structure of earth is not isolated. 
It is but one of a series of mounds, and other evidences of ancient occupation at 
this point, of more than ordinary interest. I have visited and examined seven 
mounds, situated within a short distance of each other. They occupy the summit 
level of a rich alluvial plain, stretching on the left or Virginia bank of the Ohio, 
between the junction of Big and Little Green Creeks with that stream. They 
appear to have been connected by low earthen intrenchments, of which plain 
traces are still visible on some parts of the commons. They included a well, 
stoned up in the usual manner, which is now filled with rubbish. 
The summit of this plain is probably seventy-five feet above the present summer 
level of the Ohio. It constitutes the second bench or rise of land above the water. 
It is on this summit, and on one of the most elevated parts of it, that the great 
tumulus stands. It is in the shape of a broad cone, cut off at the apex, where it 
is some fifty feet across. This area is quite level, and commands a view of the 
entire plain, and of the river above and below, and the west shore of the Ohio in 
front. Any public transaction on this area would be visible to multitudes around 
it, and it has, in this respect, all the advantages of the Mexican and Yucatanese 
teocalli. The circumference of the base has been stated at a little under nine 
hundred feet ; its height is sixty-nine feet. 
The most interesting object of antiquarian inquiry is a small flat stone, inscribed 
with antique alphabetic characters, which was disclosed on the opening of the 
large mound. These characters are in the ancient rock alphabet of sixteen right 
and acute angled single strokes, used by the Pelasgi and other early Mediterra- 
nean nations, and which is the parent of the modern Runic as well as the Bardic. 
It is now some four or five years since the completion of the excavations, so far 
as they have been made, and the discovery of this relic. Several copies of it soon 
got abroad, which difiered from each other, and, it was supposed, from the original. 
This conjecture is true : neither the print published in the Cincinnati Gazette in 
1839, nor that in the American Pioneer in 1843, is correct. I have terminated 
this uncertainty by taking copies by a scientific process, which does not leave the 
lines and figures to the uncertainty of man's pencil. 
The existence of this ancient art here could not be admitted, otherwise than as 
an insulated fact, without some corroborative evidence in habits and customs, 
which it would be reasonable to look for in the existing ruins of ancient occu- 
pancy. It is thought some such testimony has been found. I rode out yesterday 
three miles, back to the range of high hills which encompass this sub-valley, to 
see a rude tower of stone standing on an elevated point, called Parr's point, which 
commands a view of the whole plain, and which appears to have been constructed 
as a watch-tower, or look-out, from which to descry an approaching enemy. It is 
