Alexandria Gazette & Advertiser

American Antiquities. In Belmont county, Ohio, about half a mile from the river Ohio, one of the ancient mounds has recently been opened and penetrated. This mound was 40 feet diameter at the base, 16 feet high, and flat at the top, bearing upon it large trees, with marks of a succession of growths which had decayed. The fifth stratum in this mound consisted of several layers of human bones, laid transversely, in a great mass of decayed matter five or six inches thick. These bones, when exposed to the air, would moulder away (although they seemed solid when taken up) the toe and finger nails were nearly entire. the hair, long, fine and of a dark brown color, and by letting the dirt dry, and brushing it off, it would bear to be combed and straightened out. Under the bones were flint-stone spearheads, suitable to be inserted into the end of a long pole, and some pieces of iron two or three feet long, a kind of cut-and-thrust sword in their make, their handles were ornamented with rings or tenacles of silver and lead, on which were the representations of terrapins and birds, and had also various triangular, rectangular, circular and elliptical figures made with great mathematical exactness.