380 APPENDIX. 
much dilapidated. About six or seven feet of the work is still entire. It is cir- 
cular, and composed of rough stones, without mortar, or the mark of a hammer. 
A heavy mass of fallen wall lies around, covering an area of some forty feet iu 
diameter. Two similar points of observation, occupied by dilapidated towers, are 
represented to exist, one at the prominent summit of the Ohio and Grave Creek 
hills, and another on the promontory on the opposite side of the Ohio, in Belmont 
county, Ohio. 
It is known to all acquainted with the warlike habits of our Indians, that they 
never evinced the foresight to post a regular sentry, and these rude towers may 
be regarded as of contemporaneous age with the interment of the inscription. 
Several polished tubes of stone have been found in one of the lesser mounds, 
the use of which is not very apparent. One of these, now on my table, is twelve 
jnches long, one and a quarter wide at one end, and one and a half at the other. It 
is made of a fine, compact, lead-blue steatite, mottled, and has been constructed by 
boring, in the manner of a gun-barrel. This boring has been continued to within 
about three-eighths of an inch of the larger end, through which but a small aper- 
ture is left. If this small aperture be looked through, objects at a distance are 
more clearly seen. Whether it had this telescopic use or others, the degree of 
art evinced in its construction is far from rude. By inserting a wooden rod and 
valve, this tube would be converted into a powerful syphon or syringe. 
I have not space to notice one or two additional traits, which serve to awaken 
new interest at this ancient point of aboriginal and apparently mixed settlement, 
and must omit them till my next. Yours, truly, 
HENRY R. COLCRAFT. 
Geave Creek Flats, August 24 
The great mound, at these flats, was opened as a place of public resort about 
four years ago. For this purpose a horizontal gallery to its centre was dug and 
bricked up, and provided with a door. The centre was walled round as a rotunda, 
of about twenty-five feet diameter, and a shaft was sunk from the top to intersect 
it ; it was in these two excavations that the skeletons and accompanying relics and 
ornaments were found. All those articles are arranged for exhibition in this 
rotunda, which is lighted up with candles. The lowermost skeleton is almost 
entire, and in a good state of preservation, and is put up by means of wires, on the 
walls. It has been overstretched in the process, so as to measure six feet; it 
should be about five feet eight inches. It exhibits a noble frame of the human 
species, bearing a skull with craniological developments of a highly favorable 
character. The face bones are elongated, with a long chin and symmetrical jaw, 
in which a full and fine set of teeth, above and below, are present The skeletons 
in the upper vault, where the inscription stone was found, are nearly all de- 
stroyed. 
It is a damp and gloomy repository, and exhibits in the roof and walls of the 
rotunda one of the most extraordinary sepulchral displays which the world affords. 
On casting the eye up to the ceiling, and the heads of the pillars supporting it, it 
is found to be incrusted, or rather festooned, with a white, soft, flaky mass of . 
matter, which had exuded from the mound above. This, apparently, animal exu- 
dation is as white as snow. It hangs in pendent masses and globular drops ; the 
surface is covered with large globules of clear water, which in the reflected light 
have all the brilliancy of diamonds. These drops of water trickle to the floor, and 
occasionally the exuded white matter falls. The wooden pillars are furnished 
