arcoal, beneath which was a
slab of burnt clay about 7 feet in length and 4 feet broad, which,
in the attempt to remove, broke into several fragments. Nothing
beneath this slab was found, but on examining its under side, to his
great surprise there was the mould of a naked human figure. Three of
these burned-clay sepulchers were thus raised and examined during
the first year of his occupancy, since which time none have been
found until recently. During the past season, (1878) the plow
brought up another fragment of one of these moulds, revealing the
impress of a plump human arm.

Col. C. W. Jenkes, the superintendent of the Corundum mines, which
have recently been opened in that vicinity, advises me thus:

"We have Indians all about us, with traditions extending back for
500 years. In this time they have buried their dead under huge piles
of stones. We have at one point the remains of 600 warriors under
one pile, but a grave has just been opened of the following
construction: A pit was dug, into which the corpse was placed, face
upward; then over it was moulded a covering of mortar, fitting the
form and features. On this was built a hot fire, which formed an
entire shield of pottery for the corpse. The breaking up of one such
tomb gives a perfect cast of the form of the occupant."

Colonel Jenkes, fully impressed with the value of these
archeological discoveries, detailed a man to superintend the
exhumation, who proceeded to remove the earth from the mould, which
he reached through a layer of charcoal, and then with a trowel
excavated beneath it. The clay was not thoroughly baked, and no
impression of the corpse was left, except of the forehead and that
portion of the limbs between the ankles and the knees, and even
these portions of the mould crumbled. The body had been placed east
and west, the head toward the east. "I had hoped," continues Mr.
McDowell, "that the cast in the clay would be as perfect as one I
found 51 years ago, a fragment of which I presented to Colonel
Jenkes, with the impression of a part of the arm on one side and on
the other of the fingers, that had pressed down the soft clay upon
the body interred beneath it." The mound-builders of the Ohio
valley, as has been shown, often placed a layer of clay over the
dead, but not in immediate contact, upon which they builded fires;
and the evidence that cremation was often resorte