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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 33
known as Pope's Bend, is a mount, at present some five or six feet in
height and, at ,the base, some eighty feet in diameter. It stands in the
middle of a field, which is said to have been cleared and cultivated by
the Indians. Circular in form, its central portion is considerably de
pressed. In consequence of the exposure of this tumulus to the immedi
ate action of wind .and tempest and due to its having been for years
cultivated, its present proportions do not realize its original size. The
walls of this mound must at first have been raised several feet above
its central portion. In this respect, it seems quite unique. Now, how
ever, the outer rim has an elevation of not more than two feet. It is
composed entirely of the sand and soil of the valley. Upon its surface
were found broken fragments of pottery, a stone axe, a pipe, a soap-
stone ornament, broken clay utensils and numerous fragments of human
bones. This was, without doubt, a burial mound. Just across the river,
and upon a neck of land formed by the confluence of Armurchee Creek
and the Oostanaula, is still another. The surface of the ground for sev
eral acres here is covered with pieces of pottery, and a great variety of
spears and arrow-heads. From this mound were taken a mortar of beau
tiful proportions, pestles, stone axes, etc. We are inclined to refer these
last tumuli to an Indian origin. Certain it is that many of the remains
found in and about them are purely Indian in character. It will be
observed, however, that the same locality sometimes, and in fact not un-
frequently, indicates the existence of remains peculiar both to the Mound-
Builders and to a later period.
" * * * From the best authority it appears that the Cherokees of
this region did not, as a general rule, erect mounds over the dead. The
usual custom was to hide the body in some rocky fissure, covering it with
bark, depositing with it the bow and arrow, pots, stone axes, and other
articles, the property of the deceased, and then close securely the en
trance. Often the hut of the deceased was burnt, and with it many
articles used by the late owner. Sometimes they interred beneath the
floor of the cabin, subsequently setting fire to the walls and roof, thus
obliterating every trace of the inhumation.
"Again, they buried by placing the body underneath a ledge of
rocks, or upon the slope of a hill in some unfrequented spot, heaping
above it a pile of stones. Subsequently they adopted the plan of digging
a grave some three feet or more in depth, into which the corpse was
lowered. Above it was heaped a small tumulus, some six or eight feet
in length and two or three feet in height. Upon the range of hills run
ning to the south of Rome are several graves of this latter description.
They lie north and south and are generally located in the vicinity of
large trees. On the right bank of the Etowah River, near Rome, at a
point known as 'Old Bridge,' a heavy ledge of rocks, projecting from
the side of the hill, overhung the river. It was necessary to remove this,
in order to construct the track of the Rome Railway. When forced
from its position by the blast, the fissures in the ledge were found to be
filled with the skeletons of Indians. By many they were supposed to
have been the dead killed in a battle fought but a short distance from
this spot, and here secreted by those who survived. Upon the-hill oppo
site Rome, known as ' Cemetery Hill,' many bodies, have' been discovered
securely lodged in the inequalities of the hillsides, carefully covered
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