The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-23

well finds. The professor relates the
story in the following statement over his
own signature:
The group upon which I worked for
several weeks before making the discovery
of the skeletons of the mound builders is
located on the farm of Dildine Snyder,
near East Ringgold in Pickaway county.
The group of mounds is located on a hill
over a hundred and fifty feet in hight,
commanding a beautiful outlook over the
surrounding valleys, and consisting of a
stone mound, a circle of half stone and
half clay and a clay mound, the circle
forming the connecting link between the
stone mound on the west and the earth
mound on the east. The stone mound
is twelve feet high and 125 feet in diane
ter. The circle is 10 feet in diameter and
the clay mound 1Q5 feet in diameter.
about twenty feet east of the group is
another circle, $50 feet in diameter. With
in the wall is a ditch, which surrounds
large platform about three feet lower than
the outer bank and perfectly level on the
surface. The hill curves around, hiding
part of the view. On the other bank
about 200 yards east Of this circle is an
other clay mound twelve feet high and
100 feet in diameter. North of this mound
is third circle, $50 feet in diameter This
circle and mound are generally considered
part of the snake den group, though they
do not really belong to it.
I'VE commenced work first on the earth
mound, running a trench from east to west
ten feet in width. We dug IN about twenty
five feet making an excavation about
twenty feet square. AT the bottom of the
mound we found eight skeletons, the skel-
etons being those of seven adults and one
child With the child s skeleton we found
a handsome bone awl and a small piece
of graphite A piece of pottery and some
flint knives and disks were found with
the other. bones.
Leaving the Garth mound, two of our
party started to work on the circle, one
on the west side and one on the south
After some digging on the south side, a
layer of large black stones was removed
below which the worzmen found some
half dozen concretions, which are various
sized, round shaped solid stonelike forma-
lions. By placing two halves of these con-
cretions. together a disk shaped article
was formed, resembling one inverted dish
over another. / believe these were intend
cd az receptacles for small articles of val
ne or sacredness which could be thus hid
den and preserved.
THE entire exploring force then went
to work on the south part of this circle.
After uncovering a large deposit of geo
logical and archaeological specimens, to
which 1 will refer later, we uncovered a
box two feet Tory by eighteen inches wide,
formed of large, fiat stones Within this
box were the remains of a cremated slxel-
eton, some burnt bones and perhaps a
shoVelful of ashes-all that remained of
what must have been a great chief among
the mound builders. As DR.. Ortor laugh
ingly said to me, he must have been a
great prehistoric geologist.
THE Ohio State archaeological and His
torical Society has arranged for excava-
lions in several promising fields this COM
ing summer. l look for discoveries of far
reaching Importance.
Clarence Loveberry,
Assistant Curator Ohio Archaeological
and Historical Society,""