The excavation of the horizontal shaft, near the surface, disclosed a very singular system of burial. Dr. Clemens,[14] in his account of this operation, states that at a distance of twelve or fifteen feet were found masses of a substance composed of charcoal and burnt bones, and also that when enlarging the lower vault, in which were the two skeletons, ten more skeletons were discovered, all of them in a sitting posture, but in a state so fragile as to defy all attempts to preserve them. In this lower vault there were six hundred and fifty beads made of shell and perforated in the centre. In the smaller vault above, in which was the single skeleton, there were seventeen hundred shell beads, about one hundred and fifty small plates of mica perforated at their sides and corners, five hundred marine shells and five copper bands or bracelets which were placed on the bones of the arms. There was a tree growing upon the top of the mound which interfered with the operations. Dr. Clemens stated that it was two-and-a-half feet in diameter, and had three hundred growths from centre to circumference. Some years earlier another oak which had become decayed was cut down by the proprietor, who said that he had counted upon it nearly five hundred annual rings. The number of rings in the trunk of a tree, growing upon any part of the mound, gives clear evidence upon the question of its least age, and therefore it may be assumed that the date of the completion of the burial mound cannot be later than the fourteenth century. It is, however, possible that there may have been several successive growths of trees on the slopes, and in that case it may have been raised at some earlier period. The Miamisburgh mound, at the time when I saw it, was covered with trees, none of which appeared to be of great age. They must have been preceded by other growths. The nature of the ornaments buried with the skeletons in the Grave Creek mound, seems to prove that there must have been communications between these Ohio races, and the tribes dwelling to the South of the Mississippi valley,[15] for the small sea shells were considered to be of the same kind as those seen on the beaches in Florida. The glittering flat slabs of mica, which hung over the breast, either as ornaments or marks of distinction, were similar to those discovered in burial mounds in the Iroquois country, near Lake Ontario. The copper bracelets were of rude workmanship, and were probably hammered into their shape from lumps of native copper. Similar bracelets have been found in some smaller burial mounds in other parts of Ohio. Those examined by me were made in the most rough and simple manner. The copper seems to have been beaten out into the required lengths, and then bent over to form the bracelets. The shapes resembled the bangles made in Hindostan and Persia.