surveyed and examined them, into "Mounds of Sacrifice," "Mounds of Sepulture," and "Mounds of Observation" The first kind only, in which the so-called "altars" are found, will be noticed.
At the center of each of the mounds of this class, and on the ground level, there was found a bed of clay, artificially formed into a shallow basin, and then hardened by fire. These basins have been termed "altars" by Squier and Davis in their work on the "Ancient Monuments of the Missis-
sippi Valley." Mr. Squier remarks in a résumé of this work, published separately, that "some are round, others elliptical, and others square or parallelograms. * * * The usual dimensions are from five to eight feet."[1]
At Mound City, on the Scioto River, there is a group of twenty-six mounds in one inclosure, an engraving of one of which, taken from Mr. Squier's paper, is shown in Fig. 49. It is seven feet high by fifty-five feet base, and contained the artificial clay basin in question. F F is the basin, which is round, and measures from c to d nine feet, and from a to c five feet. The height from b to c is twenty inches, and the dip of the curve, a to e, is nine inches. "The body of the altar," Mr Squier remarks, "is burned throughout, though in a greater degree within the basin, where it
- ↑ Observations, etc., Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., ii, 158.
