A trench was dug on the east side of the mound, nearly corresponding in dimensions to the one on the west side, making the length of the whole excavation, including the central cavity, thirty-two feet.
In the last opening, eight skeletons were exhumed; the mode of burial was the same throughout. The only article of value recovered was a curiously wrought pipe of stone, having a "figure head" representing the human face, which I have put down in a list of "articles stolen," and which the thief can describe better than the writer. After filling up all the gaps, and levelling the surface to suit the taste of the proprietor, we closed our labors on the mound in the Bent.
Of the skulls collected, it is sufficient to say that they belong to the "short heads," the length and breadth having a comparative medium proportion, a common form of cranium in the mounds of Tennessee.
Of stone implements I specify an ax of serpentine, ten inches long, two thick, and four broad, having plain sides and a straight edge ground down on both of the flat faces; hatchets ("tomahawks") of green stone, flint, and diorite, from five to eight inches long, with rounded faces and sides, contracted to an edge at one end, and to a flat heel at the other; a wedge of black slate, seven inches long and half an inch thick, of a square finish on the faces and sides and at the heel, which was diminished two inches, as compared with the length of the edge; hatchets with a serrated edge at each end, plane on both sides, convex on one face and flat on the other.
With one skeleton was deposited a "set of tools," eight in number, of the species of rock before mentioned, varying in length from two to eight inches. Their peculiarity consists in a variety of shapes--no two being precisely alike--and in their fitness to various uses, such as carving, hacking, paring, and grooving. The smallest of them, having a square finish, was held by the thumb and two fingers, and is suitable for cutting lines and figures in wood and shells. Specimens of this art were furnished from the mound. The largest number might serve for hatchets, chisels, and gouges. One had been ground in the form of a cylinder five inches long and an inch thick, and then cut an inch on two sides to an edge, and worked into a handle with a round bead, from the center of the elliptical faces. It might be used for chipping wood and stone. One answered the purpose of a cold chisel; another was somewhat similar, but had a hollow face reduced to a curved edge for grooving. These polished instruments, wrought with much care, seemed intended for use by the hand rather than for insertion in a handle or socket, or attachment to a shaft by means of a strap or withe. Only one was perforated. The drilling through granite, quartz, and diorite, without the use of metal, was a severe labor, even for savage patience. A long knife of silex, with a wrought handle, lance heads, leaf shaped, of the same material, of beautiful workmanship, arrow points of fine finish, furnished, with others before mentioned, an assortment of arms. Several flint points, though only an inch long, were curved like a cimeter, and used probably as flaying instruments. True disks, of various mineral substances, from an inch to five inches in diameter, having convex faces, complete the list of stone implements. Those of bone comprise several like hollow chisels, sharpened at one end, and pierced through one face, near the other extremity, so as to be fastened to a handle; these were used for dressing skins. One was formed like a poniard, with a worked hilt. With these may be connected arrow heads and sharp pointed weapons of the worked antlers of the stag, and tusks of the wild boar.