mount, do not speak of them at all, but at the time of Captain Wilkes’s expedition it is conjectured that there were at least 3,000.  A fire caused by the carelessness of one of his party destroyed the whole, to the great indignation of the Indians.

Captain Bolcher, of the British ship Sulphur, who visited the river in 1839, remarks:  “In the year 1836 [1826] the small-pox made great ravages, and it was followed a few years since by the ague.  Consequently Corpse Island and Coffin Mount, as well as the adjacent shores, were studded not only with canoes, but at the period of our visit the skulls and skeletons were strewed about in all directions.”  This method generally prevailed on the neighboring coasts, as at Shoal Water Bay, &c.  Farther up the Columbia, as at the Cascades, a different form was adopted, which is thus described by Captain Clarke: 

“About half a mile below this house, in a very thick part of the woods, is an ancient Indian burial-place; it consists of eight vaults, made of pine cedar boards, closely connected, about 8 feet square and 6 in height, the top securely covered with wide boards, sloping a little, so as to convey off the rain.  The direction of all these is east and west, the door being on the eastern side, and partially stopped with wide boards, decorated with rude pictures of men and other animals.  On entering we found in some of them four dead bodies, carefully wrapped in skins, tied with cords of grass and bark, lying on a mat in a direction east and west; the other vaults contained only bones, which in some of them were piled to a height of 4 feet; on the tops of the vaults and on poles attached to them hung brass kettles and frying-pans with holes in their bottoms, baskets, bowls, sea-shells, skins, pieces of cloth, hair bags of trinkets, and small bones, the offerings of friendship or affection, which have been saved by a pious veneration from the ferocity of war or the more dangerous temptation of individual gain.  The whole of the walls as well as the door were decorated with strange figures cut and painted on them, and besides these were several wooden images of men, some of them so old and decayed as to have almost lost their shape, which were all placed against the sides of the vault.  These images, as well as those in the houses we have lately seen, do not appear to be at all the objects of adoration in this place; they were most probably intended as resemblances of those whose decease they indicate, and when we observe them in houses they occupy the most conspicuous part, but are treated more like ornaments than objects of worship.  Near the vaults which are still standing are the remains of others on the ground, completely rotted and covered with moss; and as they are formed of the most durable pine and cedar timber, there is every appearance that for a very long series of years this retired spot has been the depository for the Indians near this place.”