two were found by my friend
Dr. Wm. Blanding, during his long residence in Camden, South Carolina.
These disks were accompanied, as usual, by earthern[TN-3] vessels, pipes
of baked clay, arrow-heads and other articles, respecting which Dr.
Blanding has given me the following locality:--"All the Indian relics,
save three or four, which I have sent you, were collected on or near the
banks of the Wateree river, Kershaw district, South Carolina; the
greater part from the mounds or near the foot of them. All the mounds
that I have observed in this state, excepting these, do not amount to as
many as are found on the Wateree within the distance of twenty four
miles up and down the river, between Lancaster and Sumpter districts.
The lowest down is called Nixon's mound, the highest up, Harrison's."

"The discoidal stones," adds Dr. Blanding, "were found at the foot of
the different mounds, not in them. They seemed to be left, where they
were no doubt used, on the play grounds."

The disks are from an inch and a half to six inches in diameter, and
present some varieties in other respects.

[Illustration]

Fig. 1 represents a profile of the simplest form and at the same time
the smallest size of these stones, being in diameter about an inch and
three quarters. The upper and under surfaces are nearly plane, with
angular edges and oblique margin, but without concavity or perforation.

Fig. 2. A similar form, slightly concave on each surface.

Fig. 3. A large disk of white quartz, measuring five inches in diameter
and an inch and three fourths in thickness. The margin is rounded, and
both surfaces are deeply concave though imperforate.

Fig. 4 is another specimen four inches in diameter, deeply concave from
the margin to the center, with a central perforation. The margin itself
is slightly convex. The concave surface is marked by two sets of
superficial grooved lines, which meet something in the form of a
bird-track. This disk is made of a light-brown ferruginous quartz.

Fig. 5 is a profile view of a solid lenticular stone, much more convex
on the one side than the other, formed of hard syenitic rock.

Besides these there are other slight modifications of form which it is
unnecessary to particularize.

These disks are made of the hardest stones, and wrought with admirable
symmetry and polish, surpassing any thing we could readily conceive of
in the humbler arts of the present Indian tribes; and the question
arises, whethe