No. 4, a trifle smaller than No. 3, was opened by running a trench from the eastern margin. For a distance of 15 or 16 feet nothing was encountered except the earth, with which it appeared to be covered to the depth of 2 feet. Here was found a layer of rough stones covering a mass of charcoal and ashes with bones intermixed. In fact the indications leave the impression that one or more persons (or their bones) had been burned in a fire on the natural surface of the earth near the center of the mound, the coals and brands of which were then covered with rough stones thrown in, without any system, to the depth of 3 feet, over a space 10 or 12 feet in diameter, and then covered with earth. Only fragments of charred human bones, pieces of rude pottery, and stone chips were found commingled with the charcoal and ashes.
Another group on the farm of Mr. J. N. Boulware, near the line between Clarke and Lewis counties, was examined by the same party. This group, which is situated on a bench or terrace from 20 to 40 feet above the Mississippi bottoms, consists of some 55 or 60 ordinary circular mounds of comparatively small size.
In one of these, 45 feet in diameter and 5 feet high, were found, near the top, the fragments of a human skeleton much decayed, and broken pottery, encircled by a row of flat stones set up edgewise and covered with others of a similar character. Below these was a layer of very hard light-colored earth, mixed throughout with fragments of charred human bones and pottery, charcoal and stone chips.
Another, about 60 feet in diameter, was found to consist (except the top layer of soil, about 1 foot thick) of hard, dried "mortar" (apparently clay and ashes mixed), in which fragments of charred human bones, small rounded pieces of pottery, and stone scrapers were mingled with charcoal and ashes.
"As all the mounds opened here," remarks the assistant, "presented this somewhat singular feature, I made a very careful examination of this mortar-like substance. I found that there were differences between different portions of the same mound sufficiently marked to trace the separate masses. This would indicate that the mounds were built by successive deposits of mortar thus mixed with charred bones, and not in strata but in masses."
THE OHIO DISTRICT.
This, as before stated, includes Ohio, a portion of eastern Indiana, and the western part of West Virginia.
As only very limited explorations have been made in the Ohio portion of this district by the Bureau of Ethnology, I will content myself with a brief allusion to the observations of others.