“The body of the person here buried, was laid on the surface of the earth, with his face upwards, and his feet pointing to the north-east, and head to the south-west. From the appearance of several pieces of charcoal, and bits of partially burnt fossil coal, and the black colour of the earth, it would appear that the funeral obsequies had been celebrated by fire; and while the ashes were yet hot and smoking, a circle of flat stones had been laid around and over the body. The circular covering is about eight feet in diameter, and the stones yet look black, as if stained by fire and smoke. This circle of stones seems to have been the nucleus on which the mound was formed, as immediately over them is heaped the common earth of the adjacent plain, composed of a clayey sand and coarse gravel. This mound must originally have been about ten feet high, and thirty feet in diameter at its base. At the time of opening it, the height was six feet, and diameter between thirty and forty. It has every appearance of being as old as any in the neighbourhood, and was, at the first settlement of Marietta, covered with large trees, the remains of whose roots were yet apparent in digging away the earth. It also seems to have been made for this single personage, as the remains of one skeleton only were discovered. The bones were much decayed, and many of them crumbled to dust on exposure to the air. From the length of some of them, it is supposed the person was about six feet in height. “Nothing unusual was discovered in their form, except that those of the skull were uncommonly thick. The situation of the mound on high ground, near the margin of the plain, and the porous quality of the earth, are admirably calculated to preserve any perishable substance from the certain decay which would attend it in many other situations. To these circumstances, is attributed the tolerable state of preservation in which several of the articles above described were found, after lying in the earth for several centuries. We say _centuries_, from the fact that trees were found growing on those ancient works, whose ages were ascertained to amount to between four and five hundred years each, by counting the concentric circles in the stumps after the trees were cut down; and on the ground, besides them, were other trees in a state of decay, that appeared to have fallen from old age.” It should be observed with reference to the statements made in the above letter, that the age of the trees, said to have been estimated by the early settlers at Marietta, has generally been accepted as being correct, and based upon direct and accurate evidence. Consequently it would be necessary to admit that the earthworks were raised at some period before the fifteenth century.