stood upright timbers, which had supported transverse timbers forming the ceiling. Over the timbers had been placed unhewn stone; but the decay of the timbers occasioned the fall of the stones and the superincumbent earth, so as to nearly fill the vault. In this vault were found two skeletons, one of which was devoid of ornament-the other was surrounded by 650 ivory beads, resembling button-moles, and an ivory ornament of about six inches in length, which is one inch and five eighths wide in the centre, half an inch wide at the ends, and on one side flat and on the other oval-shaped. A singular white exudation of animal matter overhangs the roof of this vault.

Another excavation was commenced at the top of the mound downwards. Midway between the top and bottom, and over the vault above described, a second and similar vault was discovered, and, like that, caved in by the falling of the ceiling, timbers, stones, &c. In the upper vault was found the singular hieroglyphical stone hereafter described, 1700 ivory beads, 500 sea-shells of the involute species, that were worn as beads, and five copper bracelets about the wrists of the skeleton. The shells and beads were about the neck and breast of the skeleton, and there were also about 150 pieces of isinglass strewed over the body.

The mound is composed of the same kind of earth as that around it, being a fine loamy sand, but differs very much in color from that of the natural ground. After penetrating about eight feet with the first or horizontal excavation, blue spots began to appear in the earth of which the mound is composed. On close examination, these spots were found to contain ashes and bits of burnt bones. These spots increased as they approached the centre at the distance of 120 feet within, the spots were so numerous and condensed as to give the earth a clouded appearance, and excited the admiration of all who saw it. Every part of the mound presents the same appearance, except near the sur. face. The blue spots were probably occasioned by depositing the remains of bodies consumed by fire.

In addition to the relics in the mammoth mound, there has been a great number and variety of relics found in the neighborhood: many of them were discovered with skeletons which were nearly decayed. Mr. Tomlinson has some beads, found about two

At the top and bottom, where the timbers had been placed, were particles of charcoal--an evidence that fire, instead of iron, had been used in severing the wood. This goes to show that the constructors of the mound were not acquainted with the use of iron; and the fact that none of that metal was found in the vault, strongly corroborates the opinion. Some of the stones were water-worn, probably from the river; others were identical with a whet-stone quarry on the Ohio side of the river, two miles northН. Н.

miles from this great mound, that are evidently a kind of porcelain, and very similar, if not identical in substance with artificial teeth set by dentists. He has also an image of stone, found with other relics about eight miles distant. It is in human shape, sitting in a cramped position, the face and eyes projecting upwards. The nose is what is called Roman. On the crown of the head is a knot, in which the hair is concentrated and tied. The head and features particularly is a display of great workmanship and ingenuity. It is eleven inches in height, but if it were straight would be double that height. It is generally believed to have been an idol.

Mr. Henry R. Colcraft, [Schoolcraft,] whose researches upon the Indian antiquities of the west have placed him at the head of the list of scientific inquirers upon this subject, visited Grave Creek in August, 1843, and devoted several days to the examination of the antique works of art at that place. The result of his investigations is partially given in a communication to the New York Commercial Advertiser, copied below. We were subsequently at Grave Creek, and obtained an impression in wax of the hieroglyphical stone to which he alludes. An accurate engraving from this impression we insert in its proper place in his article:

I have devoted several days to the examination of the antiquities of this place and its vicinity, and find them to be of even more interest than was anticipated. The most prominent object of curiosity is the great tumulus, of which notices have appeared in western papers; but this heavy structure of earth is not isolated. It is but one of a series of mounds and other evidences of ancient occupation at this point, of more than ordinary interest. I have visited and examined seven mounds situated within a short distance of each other. They occupy the summit level of a rich alluvial plain, stretching on the left or Virginia bank of the Ohio, between the junctions of Big and Little Grave creeks with that stream. They appear to have connected by low earthen intrenchments, of which plain traces are still visible on some parts of the commons. They included a well, stoned up in the usual manner, which is now filled with rubbish.

The summit of this plain is probably 75 feet above the present summit-level of the Ohio. It constitutes the second bench or rise of land above the water. It is on this summit, and one of the most elevated parts of it, that the great tumulus stands. It is in the shape of a broad cone, cut off at the apex, where it is some fifty feet across. This area is quite level, and commands a view of the entire plain, and of the river above and below, and the west shores of the Ohio in front. Any public transaction on this area would be visible to multitudes around it, and it has, in this respect, all the advantages of the Mexican and Yucatanese teocalli. The circumference of the base has been stated at a little under 900 feet; the height is 69 feet.

The most interesting object of antiquarian inquiry is a small flat stone, inscribed with antique alphabetic characters, which was disclosed on the opening of the mound. These

copies by a scientific process, which does tainty of man's pencil.

characters are in the ancient rock alphabet of 16 right and acute-angled single strokes, used by the Pelasgi and other early Mediterranean nations, and which is the parent of the modern Runic as well as the Bardic. It is now some four or five years since the completion of the excavations, so far as they have been made, and the discovery of this relic. Several copies of it soon got abroad which differed from each other, and, it was supposed, from the original. This conjecture is true. Neither the print published in the Cincinnati Gazette in 1839, nor that in the American Pioneer in 1843, is correct. I have terminated this uncertainty by taking not leave the lines and figures to the uncer

The existence of this ancient art here could hardly be admitted, otherwise than as an insulated fact, without some corroborative evidence in habits and customs, which it would be reasonable to look for in the existing ruins of ancient occupancy. It is thought

some such testimony has been found. I rode out yesterday three miles, back to the range of high hills which encompass this sub-valley, to see a rude tower of stone standing on an elevated point, called Parr's Point, which commands a view of the whole plain, and which appears to have been constructed as a watch-tower, or lookout, from which to descry an approaching enemy. It is much dilapidated. About six or seven feet of the work is still entire. It is circular, and composed of rough stones, laid without mortar, or the mark of a hammer. A heavy mass of fallen walls lies around, cover. ing an area of some forty feet in diameter. Two similar points of observation, occupied by dilapidated towers, are represented to exist, one at the prominent summit of the Ohio and Grave creek hills, and another on the promontory on the opposite side of the Ohio, in Belmont county, Ohio.

It is well known to all acquainted with the warlike habits of our Indians, that they never evinced the foresight to post a regular sentry, and these rude towers may be regarded as of contemporaneous age with the interment of the inscription.

Several polished tubes of stone have been found in one of the lesser mounds, the use of which is not very apparent. One of these now on my table is twelve inches long, one and a fourth wide at one end, and one and a half at the other. It is made of a fine, compact, lead-blue steatite, mottled, and has been constructed by boring, in the manner of a gun-barrel. This boring is continued to within about three-eighths of an inch of the larger end, through which but a small aperture is left. If this sinall aperture be looked through, objec s at a distance are more clearly seen. Whether it had this telescope or others, the degree of art evinced in its construction is far from rude. By inserting a wooden rod and valve, this tube would be converted into a powerful syphon or syringe.

I have not space to notice one or two additional traits which serve to awaken new interest at this ancient point of aboriginal and apparently mixed settlement.

MARION.

MARION was formed in 1842, from Harrison and Monongalia, and named from General Francis Marion. It is about 40 miles long, with a mean width of 13 miles. It is watered by the west fork of the Monongahela and its branches. The county is well timbered, and adapted to grazing; its surface is hilly, and much of the soil fertile. Fairmont, formerly called Middletown, is the county-seat; it is 278 miles NW. of Richmond, 40 miles E. of the Ohio, 22 N. of Clarksburg, and 18 s. of Morgantown. It was established by law in 1820, and is now a flourishing village, pleasantly situated on the west bank of the Monongahela, near the southern line of the county. It contains 5 mercantile stores, 1 Methodist and 1 Presbyterian church, several flouring and other mills in it and vicinity, and about 70 dwellings. The face of the surrounding country is somewhat hilly; the soil is generally of a rich loamy clay, producing all the staples common to the middle states. forests abound with the finest timber, and the earth is stored with iron ore, and the best stone-coal, the latter of which is largely exported. Palatine lies opposite Fairmont, on the Monongahela. It is a new and flourishing village, containing 2 stores, some mills, and about 25 dwellings. Holtsville, Newport, and Milford, are small but flourishing places on the Monongahela, below Fairmont. As this county comes within the limits of the tract described in Doddridge's Notes, we make an extract depicting the customs of those primitive times:

The

The settlements on this side of the mountains commenced along the Monongahela, and between that river and the Laurel ridge, in the year 1772. In the succeeding year they reached the Ohio River. The greater number of the first settlers came from the upper parts of the then colonies of Maryland and Virginia. Braddock's trail, as it was called, was the route by which the greater number of them crossed the mountains. A less number of them came by the way of Bedford and Fort Ligonier, the military road from Pennsylvania to Pittsburg. They effected their removals on horses furnished with pack-saddles. This was the more easily done, as but few of these early adventurers into the wilderness were encumbered with much baggage.

Land was the object which invited the greater number of these people to cross the mountain, for, as the saying then was, "It was to be had here for taking up;" that is, building a cabin and raising a crop of grain, however small, of any kind, entitled the occupant to four hundred acres of land, and a pre-emption right to one thousand acres more adjoining, to be secured by a land-office warrant. This right was to take effect if there happened to be so much vacant land, or any part thereof, adjoining the tract secured by the settlement right.

At an early period the government of Virginia appointed three commissioners to give certificates of settlement rights. These certificates, together with the surveyor's plat, were sent to the land-office of the state, where they lay six months, to await any caveat which might be offered. If none was offered, the patent then issued.

There was, at an early period of our settlements, an inferior kind of land title denominated a "tomahawk right," which was made by deadening a few trees near the head of a spring, and marking the bark of some one or more of them with the initials of the name of the person who made the improvement. I remember having seen a number of those "tomahawk rights" when a boy. For a long time many of them bore the names of those who made them. I have no knowledge of the efficacy of the tomahawk improvement, or whether it conferred any right whatever, unless followed by an actual settlement. These rights, however, were often bought and sold. Those who wished to make settlements on their favorite tracts of land, bought up the tomahawk improvements, rather than enter into quarrels with those who had made them. Other improvers of the land, with a view to actual settlement, and who happened to be stout veteran fellows, took a very different course from that of purchasing the "tomahawk rights." When annoyed by the claimants under those rights, they deliberately cut a few good hickories, and gave them what was called in those days a "laced jacket," that is, a sound whipping.

Some of the early settlers took the precaution to come over the mountains in the spring, leaving their families behind to raise a crop of corn, and then return and bring them out in the fall. This I should think was the better way. Others, especially those whose families were small, brought them with them in the spring. My father took the latter course. His family was but small, and he brought them all with him. The Indian meal which he brought over the mountain was expended six weeks too soon, so that for that length of time we had to live without bread. The lean venison and the breast of wild turkeys we were taught to call bread. The flesh of the bear was denominated meat. This artifice did not succeed very well. After living in this way for some time we became sickly, the stomach seemed to be always empty and tormented with a sense of hunger. I remember how narrowly the children watched the growth of the potato tops, pumpkin and squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer in the place of bread. How delicious was the taste of the young potatoes when we got them! What a jubilee, when we were permitted to pull the young corn for roasting ears. Still more so, when it had acquired sufficient hardness to be made into ionny-cakes by the aid of a tin grater. We then became healthy, vigorous, and contented with our situation, poor as it was.

My father, with a small number of his neighbors, made their settlements in the spring of 1773. Though they were in a poor and destitute situation, they nevertheless lived in peace; but their tranquillity was not of long continuance. Those most atrocious murders of the peaceable, inoffensive Indians at Captina and Yellow Creek, brought on the war of Lord Dunmore in the spring of the year 1774. Our little settlement then broke up. The women and children were removed to Morris's Fort, in Sandy Creek glade, some distance to the east of Uniontown. The fort consisted of an assemblage of small hovels, situated on the margin of a large and noxious marsh, the effluvia of which gave the most of the women and children the fever and ague. The men were compelled by necessity to return home, and risk the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the Indians, in raising corn to keep their families from starvation the succeeding winter.

Those sufferings, dangers, and losses, were the tribute we had to pay to that thirst for blood which actuated those veteran murderers who brought the war upon us! The memory of the sufferers in this war, as well as that of their descendants, still looks back upon them with regret and abhorrence, and the page of history will consign their names to posterity with the full weight of infamy they deserve.

My father, like many others, believed that, having secured his legal allotment, the rest of the country belonged of right to those who chose to settle in it. There was a piece of vacant land adjoining his tract, amounting to about 200 acres. To this tract of land he had the pre-emption right, and accordingly secured it by warrant; but his conscience would not permit him to retain it in his family; he therefore gave it to an apprentice lad whom he had raised in his house. This lad sold it to an uncle of mine for a cow and a calf, and a wool hat.

Owing to the equal distribution of real property directed by our land laws, and the sterling integrity of our forefathers in their observance of them, we have no districts of "sold land," as it is called, that is, large tracts of land in the hands of individuals, or companies, who neither sell nor improve them, as is the case in Lower Canada, and the northwestern part of Pennsylvania. These unsettled tracts make huge blanks in the population of the country where they exist.

The division-lines between those whose lands adjoined, were generally made in an amicable manner, before any survey of them was made, by the parties concerned. In doing this they were guided mainly by the tops of ridges and water-courses, but particularly the former. Hence the greater number of farms in the western parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia bear a striking resemblance to an amphitheatre. The buildings occupy a low situation, and the tops of the surrounding hills are the boundaries of the tract to which the family mansion belongs.

Our forefathers were fond of farms of this description, because, as they said, they are attended with this convenience, "that every thing comes to the house down hill.”

Most of the early settlers considered their land as of little value, from an apprehension that after a few years' cultivation it would lose its fertility, at least for a long time. I have often heard them say that such a field would bear so many crops, and another so many, more or less than that. The ground of this belief concerning the short-lived fertility of the land in this country, was the poverty of a great proportion of the land in the lower parts of Maryland and Virginia, which, after producing a few crops, became unfit for use, and was thrown out into commons.

My reader will naturally ask where were their mills for grinding grain? Where their tanneries for making leather? Where their smith-shops for making and repairing their farming utensils ? Who were their carpenters, tailors, cabinet workmen, shoemakers, and weavers? The answer is, those manufacturers did not exist, nor had they any tradesmen who were professedly such. Every family were under the necessity of doing every thing for themselves as well as they could. The hommony-block and hand-mills were in use in most of our houses. The first was made of a large block of wood about three feet long, with an excavation burned in one end, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, so that the action of the pestle on the bottom threw the corn up to the sides towards the top of it, from whence it continually fell down into the centre. In consequence of this movement, the whole mass of the grain was pretty equally subjected to the strokes of the pestle. In the fall of the year, while the Indian corn was soft, the block and pestle did very well for making meal for jonny-cake and mush, but were rather slow when the corn became hard.

The sweep was sometimes used to lessen the toil of pounding grain into meal. This was a pole of some springy elastic wood, thirty feet long or more; the butt end was placed under the side of a house, or a large stump. This pole was supported by two forks, placed about one-third of its length from the butt end, so as to elevate the small end about fifteen feet from the ground; to this was attached, by a large mortise, a piece of a sapling, about five or six inches in diameter, and eight or ten feet long. The lower end of this was shaped so as to answer for a pestle. A pin of wood was put through it at a proper height, so that two persons could work at the sweep at once. This simple machine very much lessened the labor, and expedited the work. I remember that, when a boy, I put up an excellent sweep at my father's. It was made of a sugar-tree sapling. It was kept going almost constantly, from morning till night, by our neighbors for several weeks. In the Greenbrier country, where they had a number of salt. petre caves, the first settlers made plenty of excellent gunpowder by the means of those sweeps and mortars.

A machine still more simple than the mortar and pestle, was used for making meal,