was completed, ascent to its summit was rendered more facile. It is not improbable that this was a temple-mound, used by priests and devotees in their established worship of the Sun.

One hundred feet north of this tumulus is a second mound, B, about forty feet high, elliptical in shape, with a summit diameter, measured in the direction of the major axis, of one hundred and twenty-eight feet. Northwest of this mound, and distant between three and four hundred yards, is the third of the group, C, its outlines marred by the elements, and its northern slope carried away by the excavations for the new track of the Central Railway. It is still about forty feet high, and is conical in form-its mean summit diameter being about eighty-two feet. On its top is the decayed stump of a tree more than five feet thick.

About four hundred yards in a northeasterly direction from this mound is the last tumulus of the series, D. In general characteristics it closely resembles the mound last mentioned. These mounds are all flat on their summits, and may be described as truncated cones, with the exception of the temple-mound, which assimilates the form of an octagonal truncated pyramid. The temple-mound was erected for religious purposes; the others were heaped up, probably in honor of the dead. Upon the acclivity east of the central mound are manifest remains of an aboriginal settlement. Here, in excavating for the new track of the Central Railway, the workmen a short time since unearthed, a few feet below the surface, several skeletons, in connection with which were found beads of shell and porcelain, a part of a discoid stone, several arrow and spear-points, two stone celts, a clay pipe, an earthen pot and other matters of a primitive character, fashioned for use or ornament.

This excavation for the line of the railway necessitated the removal of a considerable portion of the northern side of the central mound. In the conduct of this work the laborers, while cutting through the slope of the mound, and at the depth, perhaps, of three feet below the superior surface, exhumed several skulls, regular in outline and possessing the ordinary characteristics of American crania. Associated with these skeletons were stone implements-the handiwork of the red race-Venetian beads and copper hawk-belts acquired through commercial intercourse with the early traders and voyagers. The fact was patent that at least some of these inhumations had occurred subsequent to the period of primal contact between the European and the Indian.

Passing below these interments-which were evidently second

ary in their character-and arriving at the bottom of the mound, a skull was obtained which differed most essentially from those we have described as belonging to a later inhumation. It was vastly older than those of the secondary interments, and had been artificially distorted to such an extent that the cerebellum was quite obliterated, while the front portion of the skull had not only been flattened, but irregularly compressed so as to cause an undue elevation and divergence to the left.

Among the relics found in the vicinity of this artificially-compressed skull was a total absence of European ornaments. Here we have an interesting demonstration of the fact that these ancient tumuli were in turn used by tribes who, perhaps, had no knowledge the one of the other. The flattened and distorted skull belongs to the mound-building people, to whose industry the erection of these tumuli is to be referred. It was in perpetuation and in honor of such primal sepulture that this mound was heaped up. In the course of time these sepulchral and templestructures, abandoned of their owners, passed into the hands of other and later red races, who buried their dead upon the interior surface and along the slopes of these ancient tumuli, having at the time, perchance, no personal acquaintance with, and frequently not even a distinct tradition of, the people to whose exertions these evidences of early constructive skill were attributable.

The very generations of the dead

Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb,

Until the memory of an age is fled,

And buried, sinks beneath the offspring's doom.-BYRON.

Who these flat-head mound-builders were is matter for conjecture. It may be that they were a colony of the Natchez, journeying hither from their old habitance on the banks of the Mississippi. Below these mounds, in the valley-lands of the Ockmulgee, upon Lamar's plantation, are several large tumuli. The presence of these mounds and the numerous relics scattered through the length and breadth of the valley for miles, afford ample testimony that this rich alluvial soil was once the seat of a numerous and, perhaps, permanent population."

My first view of this temple mound was in the fall of 1881. A few years since I had curiosity to visit it again, and, from my observations made at these visits, I formed the idea that this mound was not wholly artificial. It is on a point of the highland projecting into the lowlands of the Ockmulgee river, and was probably a prominent elevation of which the builder took advantage for

the formation of this mound by excavating the ground on two sides the north and west-and heaping it on the summit of the elevation. Earth could not be taken from the other two sides, on account of the declivity of the highland on those two sides.

I observed no indication of terraces, no inclined plane or ramp for ascending to the top of the mound. But I believe that this mound was terraced and that the ascent was made by steps or an inclined plane leading from the base of one terrace to the next, as described in the account of the teocalli of Mexico. Time and the elements have obliterated in this mound, as it has probably in many others, the angles, terraces, platforms and altars that originally were distinct in these structures.

This mound had been occupied by troops in the late war, and an entrenchment had been made on its summit, so as to embrace all the area of the summit, the earth from the ditch being heaped on the edge of the declivity of the mound, thus forming a breastwork. The water accumulated in this ditch had burst its barrier, flowed down the south side of the mound, and made a considerable ravine.

The top of this mound, as the top of that at Sultzertown, had been cultivated, and it is also probable that this cultivation has not only reduced the elevation, but has also destroyed every structure that may have originally been raised on its summit. The mound on the edge of the railroad excavation is, as the temple mound, denuded of trees and quite bare.

The Choctaws and the Caribbs flatten the head, and I heard many years ago that a human skull flattened in a manner similar to the flattened skull found in the middle mound of the Macon group was discovered in the Sultzertown mound. There were and still are Indians who flatten the heads of their children when infants. James G. Swan, in his book entitled "The North West Coast; or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory," has the following, in speaking of some of the coast tribes of Indians between the Columbia River and Fuca Straits: "The most singular custom among these Indians is that of flattening or compressing the head of the infant. Where this custom originated is hard to tell. Lewis and Clark state that it is not peculiar to that part of the continent. But wherever it began, or what was its origin, the practice is now universal among the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains, in the region of Columbia, and it is confined to them, for, with the exception of the Snake Indians, who are called Flat Heads, the fashion is not known to the east of that barrier.

This pressure on the forehead causes the head to expand lat

erally, giving an expression of great broadness to the face; but I never perceived that it affected the mind at all, although it disfigures them very much in appearance. I have seen several whose heads have not been thus pressed, and they were smart, intelligent, and quite good-looking, but they were laughed at by the others, who asserted that their mothers were too lazy to shape their heads properly. But although I have seen persons with and others without this deformity, I never could discover any superiority of intellect of one over the other."

CHAPTER XXII.

Tumuli-Views of a Member of the First Congress-The Works on Little River, Georgia-Bartram's Description of them, of Cullsate, of Sticoe, of Keowee Ancient Tombs and Fortifications on the River Huron, or Bald Eagle Ancient Works near Newark, Ohio-Ancient Fortifications at Marietta-The Ancient Works at Grave Creek, Virginia-Schoolcraft's Visit to them.

THE following is from a work entitled " Voyage dans La Haute Pennsylvanie," published at Paris in the year 1801:

"I have the following details relative to artificial mounds and arenas which are seen in Georgia and the two Floridas, of Mr. B—, elected member of Congress at the birth of the new Government, and for four years since Senator of the United States.*

We know by the tradition of the Cherokees that at the period of the arrival of their ancestors from the mountains of Mexico these great works were very nearly the same as we see them now, and that the most ancient among the Savannucast were ignorant when and by whom they had been raised. This invasion took place about the end of the fifteenth century. If we suppose that, among a nation of hunters, three hundred years were sufficient to efface the last souvenirs of tradition, then the existence of these monuments ascends to the twelfth century. How much it is to be regretted that these feeble lights are extinct! What could be the cause of this absolute silence? Does it come from the high antiquity of these works, or from the stupid ignorance of our aborigines? Was this ancient people aboriginal? How many centuries has it existed as a nation before having been able to raise these pyramids and dig these arenas? For what use were they

* Probably Mr. Baldwin, of Georgia.

† The name of the ancient natives of Georgia and the mountains of Tennessee.

destined? What is the degree of civilization to which men can arrive without the knowledge of the use of iron? What were the religious opinions to which these pyramids were adapted? What has been the fate of these ancient nations? Could they have been destroyed by some great catastrophe of nature? That is not probable, since the works, entirely constructed of earth, still exist. Could they have been exterminated by barbarians from the interior of the continent? If so, how conceive that a numerous people, capable of raising so imposing and massive ones, could be entirely destroyed, and that the lights and knowledge that they had acquired have perished with it, without those who would have escaped having carried elsewhere its lights and its knowledge, or, finally, without the conquerors having preserved some sparks of it? Is the period of its existence posterior, or is it anterior to that of this ancient people which raised on the borders of the Ohio and elsewhere entrenched camps which have been discovered for many years? After an attentive examination of these works alike made of earth, and in which, as well as in the first, there is not found any indication of iron nor of any dressed stone, we can believe them cotemporary. If we conceive that a pacific people such as that which inhabited this State and the two Floridas have been destroyed by barbarous nations, to what cause shall we attribute the entire disappearance of the warlike nations of the Ohio, which could raise ramparts so formidable and choose positions so military? If these works date from the same epoch (which appears very probable), the same unknown cause would have destroyed at the same time the warlike people and the pacific nation, although separated by a distance of more than two hundred leagues.

Like to the pyramids of Egypt, these traces of the existence, of the industry, and of the civilization of these ancient peoples, are no more than useless and mute witnesses, whose relation with the ancient state and things of this part of the world are enveloped and lost in the vague darkness of the past. However, although these entrenched camps, these works, are but as imperceptible points, hillocks, compared with the grandeur of those rivals, of ages raised on the borders of the Nile, they present to the view of the observer what America contains of the most ancient and most extraordinary and of the most worthy to be attentively examined.

But, finally, since we cannot form conjectures more probable, we must therefore believe that these industrious and peaceable nations must have been exterminated by some barbarous hordes from the