One of the most striking evidences of the extent of occupation of the country, and the denseness of its ancient population, is furnished by a map in the _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, showing a section of twelve miles of the Scioto Valley. Square, circular, and polygonal enclosures, single and in groups, parallels, ditches, and mounds, occupy every available terrace along the banks of the Scioto River, and its tributary Paint Creek. A group of mounds in Ross county, Ohio, occupies the third terrace on the east side of the Scioto Valley, nearly a hundred feet above the river, and about equidistant from two remarkable sacred enclosures. The principal mound is twenty-two feet high; and on penetrating to its centre the traces of a rude sarcophagus of unhewn logs were indicated by the cast which still remained in the compacted earth. The bottom had been laid with matting or wood, the only remains of which were a whitish stratum of decomposed vegetable matter; and the timbers of the sarcophagus had in like manner decayed, and allowed the superincumbent earth to fall on the skeleton. Alongside of it were several hundred beads, made of the columellæ of marine shells and the tusks of some animal, several of them bearing marks which seemed to indicate that they were turned, instead of being carved, or ground into shape by the hand. They retained their position, forming a triple row, as originally strung round the neck of the dead; and, with the exception of a few laminæ of mica, were the only objects discovered in the grave. A layer of charcoal, about ten feet square, lay directly above the sarcophagus; and seemed, from the condition of the carbonised wood, to have been suddenly quenched by heaping the earth over it while still blazing.