Page:Anthropology.djvu/53

laborer to digging holes for the fence-posts; but when the work had progressed as far as the "grave," the spade barely penetrated the sod at its edge, when it came in contact with a stone, which proved, on removing the soil covering it, to be a rough, flat sandstone flag, nearly square, 3 inches thick and 18 or 20 inches broad. It was thrown aside, and the fence completed. Some time afterwards, on learning that such a stone was found on this point, I concluded to explore the place with the hope of securing a skull or other relic of interest which it may have covered. Investigation soon convinced me that it had not formed any part of the covering of a grave, but had been laid flat on the bare ground. Carefully removing the bushes and earth in which they grew, other similar stones were uncovered, forming together a rude floor or pavement 12 feet in length by 8 in width, somewhat dish-shaped, the center being gradually depressed 10 inches below the edges. The stone first discovered had formed one of the corners of this curious structure. The long axis of the work coincided with the strike of the ridge, exactly north and south; and the flags of which it was made had been carried up from an outcrop of carboniferous sandstone a mile and a half distant, and were rough and uncut, but fitted together with surprising accuracy. They were reddened and cracked, apparently by long continued heat, and the interstices between them were compactly filled with fine ashes. Upon this pavement or "altar" was a mass of ashes, perhaps a foot thick in the middle, and a little more than filling to a level its basin-like concavity. On the surface of this ash bed I collected fragments of charred bones, constituting parts of three adult human skeletons, among which were considerable portions of three lower jaws, with teeth intact, large pieces of six femurs and pelvic bones, the occipital protuberances of three crania, some bodies of vertebræ, and many small pieces so burned as to be unrecognizable. The fire which consumed these three skeletons had been smothered before it was exhausted, and while yet glowing, as many large pieces of charcoal were mingled with the bones, and the superincumbent earth in contact with the fire was reddened and partially baked. Interspersed throughout the mass of ashes filling the basin were many small pieces of bone and teeth converted into animal charcoal, and bits of flint, perhaps weapons, shivered and broken by the fierce heat of the pyre. I also observed many minute scales of burnt mica and shell, but found no part of any pipe or other object carved in stone, or of pottery. The mound inclosing this weird "sacrificial altar," after the washing of rains and beating of storms for centuries unnumbered, measured but little more than 2 feet high by 20 in diameter. The cracked and fire-scarred stones and great quantity of ashes without charcoal, mingled throughout with fragments of calcined bones, considered in connection with the prominent situation of the "altar," in full view of the valley below and of the highlands around for miles, seem to support the inference that here, at stated times, for a long period, had been practiced the burning