some places still standing at an angle of 45°. B is a regular truncated pyramid, with a square base about 106 feet on a side, two of the faces bearing 5° west of the meridian. Its elevation is 22 feet. There is no ramp, or place of ascent which is less steep than the general slopes.
Towards the southeast corner of the surface of B is a sunken place as though a vault had fallen in.
The proprietor has managed to cultivate the summits of all the mounds, regarding the group in the light of a continual injury by the loss of several acres of ground. Most of the material of the mounds is the rich black mold of the bottom land, with occasional lumps of red clay. The soil on their sides and summits produces corn, cotton, grass, vines, and bushes in full luxuriance. The perimeter of the base of the great mound is 534 paces. As the ground had been recently plowed and was soaked with a deluge of rain, a pace will represent little more than 2 feet. I give the circumference provisionally at 370 yards. The area on the top is like the base, oblong north and south, but its figure is more regular. Its perimeter is 231 paces.
From the center of the pyramid C a line on the magnetic meridian passes a few feet to the west of the center of the platform on the summit of A. Its sides are nowhere washed or gullied by rains. Prior to the clearing of the land, large trees flourished on the top and on the slopes. I estimate its mass to contain 117,000 cubic yards, which is about four-fifths of the Prussian earth monument on the field of Waterloo.
At the base the ramp is 50 feet broad, growing narrower as you ascend. It curves to the right, and reaches the area on the top near its southwest corner. Twenty-five years since, before it was injured by cultivation, visitors could easily ride to the summit on horseback along the ramp. From this spot the view of the rich valley of the Etowah, towards the west, and of the picturesque hills which border it on either side, is one of surpassing beauty.
About 300 yards to the north rises the second terrace of the valley, composed of red clay and gravel. Near the foot of it are the remains of a ditch, inclosing this group of mounds in an arc of a circle, at a distance of about 200 yards. The western end rests on the river below the mounds, into which the high waters back up a considerable distance.
It has been principally filled up by cultivation. The owner of the premises says there was originally an embankment along the edge of the ditch on the side of the pyramids, but other old settlers say there was none. If the last statement is correct, a part of the earth composing the mounds can be accounted for by the ditch.
Its length is about one-fourth of a mile, and it does not extend to the river above the mounds. Near the upper end are two oblong irregular pits, 12 to 15 feet deep, from which a part of the earth of the mounds may have been taken. The diameter of the pits varies from 150 to 200 feet, and the breadth from 60 to 70. The ditch is reputed to have been 30 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Two hundred yards to the northeast of
