fifty to a hundred yards long, and from ten to thirty feet high, terminating each way in a regular slope. Numbers of them have been penetrated in a horizontal direction. Some contain a multitude of arrowheads, fragments of pipes, and a rude kind of ware made of clay. Others furnish several strata of a white, glutinous substance, containing a considerable degree of moisture, and divided from each other by layers of common earth. This substance was no doubt produced from human bones, which time and the operation of the elements have converted into its present state. In some instances, indeed, the bones are found almost entire. Whether this circumstance may be imputed to the qualities of the ground or to recent burial, cannot well be determined." -(Hist. Louisiana, p. 349.)

Features analogous to these are furnished by occasional mounds at the North, although none have fallen under my notice. An account was published in the "Columbus (Ohio) Monitor," in 1822, of a mound excavated in Belmont County, in that State, which was fifty feet in diameter, and sixteen in height. It had a flat top, and is described as having been "composed of several strata, the fifth of which was made up of layers of human bones, placed transversely, in a mass of decaying matter. The nails of the skeletons were entire, as was also a portion of the hair, which was of a dark brown color. Under the bones were some flint spear and arrow heads; some pieces of iron, two or three feet long; a kind of cut-and-thrust sword, the handle of which was ornamented with ferules of silver and lead." The well preserved condition of the skeletons, and the presence of iron, establish the comparatively recent date of this deposit, if not of the mound itself. Perhaps neither have an antiquity beyond a hundred years; for it is certain that the existing tribes of Indians often buried in the ancient tumuli, and occasionally erected mounds.

The interesting fact of stratification finds some singular though not complete parallels in the tumuli of Great Britain and Western Asia. The barrows in the vicinity of Stonehenge and Abury, in the county of Wiltshire, England, are sometimes stratified with alternate layers of various colored earth, stone chippings, and ashes or other carbonaceous material. The excavation of one of these barrows is described by Stukeley:- "We made a large cut on the top from east to west, and after the turf was taken off, we came to a layer of chalk, then to fine garden mould, and, about three feet from the surface, to a layer of flints, humoring the convexity of the barrow, about a foot thick, and resting on a layer of soft mould, in which was enclosed an urn full of bones."(Stonehenge, p. 44.) The same features were noticed by Mr. Cunning

ton and Sir R. C. Hoare.-(See Ancient Wiltshire, vol. i. p. 87.) Clarke observed something like this in the sepulchral tumuli on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Above the stone-work of the chamber enclosing the remains of the dead "was first a layer of earth, and then a layer of sea-weed, compressed by another superincumbent stratum of earth, to the depth of about two inches. This layer of sea-weed was as white as snow, and, when taken into the hand, separated into flakes and fell in pieces. This vegetable covering is found in all the tombs of the country."-(Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 70.) Pallas also remarked these vegetable layers alternately with coarse, unglazed terra cotta vases, of rude workmanship, and filled with earth and charcoal.

PRESERVED AT DRESDEN,

CHAPTER V.

ANCIENT SERPENTINE STRUCTURES OF THE UNITED STATES.

AMONGST the earth-works of the Ohio Valley, there is a small but interesting class of works, which has, until very recently, entirely escaped observation. They are not enclosures, nor can we with propriety designate them as mounds, according to the technical application of the term adopted in this work. For reasons which cannot fail to be obvious to every mind, they have been classed as works of sacred origin. Several examples of these have been presented in the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," to which work the inquirer who seeks for further information upon this subject is respectfully referred. I have alluded to them here for the purpose of introducing the accompanying plan and description of a work by far the most extraordinary and interesting of any which has fallen under notice in the course of my observations.

It is the "GREAT SERPENT," of which a faithful delineation is given in the accompanying engraving, FIG. 25. It is situated on Brush Creek, at a point known as "Three Forks," on entry 1014, near the north line of Adams County, Ohio. It occupies the summit of a high, crescent-form hill or spur of land, rising one hundred and fifty feet above the level of Brush Creek, which washes its base. The side of the hill next the stream presents a perpendicular wall of rock, while the other slopes rapidly, but is not so steep as to preclude cultivation. The top of the hill is not level, but slightly convex, and presents a very even surface, one hundred and fifty feet wide by one thousand feet long, measuring from its extremity to the point where it connects with the table-land. Conforming to the curve of the hill, and occupying its very summit, is an embankment in the form of a serpent, its head resting near the point of the hill, and its body winding back for seven hundred feet, in graceful undulations, terminating in a triple coil at the tail. The entire