CHAPTER X.

THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

EARTH-PYRAMIDS—MONUMENTS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS—SEATS OF ANCIENT POPULATION—DIFFERENT CLASSES OF WORKS—ANCIENT STRONGHOLDS— NATURAL SITES—FORT HILL, OHIO—IROQUOIS STRONGHOLDS—ANALOGOUS STRONGHOLDS—FORTIFIED CIVIC SITES—SACRED ENCLOSURES—NEWARK EAGLE MOUND—GEOMETRICAL EARTHWORKS—PLAN OF NEWARK EARTHWORKS, OHIO—A STANDARD OF MEASUREMENT—DIVERSITY OF WORKS—THE CINCINNATI TABLET—A GEOMETRICAL INSTRUMENT—TRACES OF EXTINCT ARTS.

The progress hitherto noted has related chiefly to the tools of the workman. In Mexico, and still more in Central America and Peru, those were applied both to sculpture and architecture on a grand scale. But some of the most singular memorials of the primitive architecture of the New World survive in the form of gigantic earthworks, perpetuating in their construction remarkable evidence of geometrical skill.

Along the broad levels drained by the Mississippi and its numerous tributaries traces of America’s allophylian population abound; and the Ohio valley is pre-eminently remarkable for the number and magnitude of such works. The Ohio and its tributary streams flow through a fine undulating, fertile country, which now forms one of the great centres of population; and the evidence of modern enterprise and skill which abounds there gives additional interest to traces which disclose to us proof that this vast area is not now rescued for the first time from the primeval forest, with its wild fauna, and still wilder savage man.

In a region such as this, attracting population to the broad alluvial terraces overlooking its smoothly-flowiug rivers, it was natural that the building instinct of man should first employ itself on earthworks; and that the monuments should assume a pyramidal form. The great mound of Miamisburg, Ohio, is sixty-eight feet high, and eight hundred and fifty-two feet in circumference at its base. The more famous Grave Creek Mound of Virginia rises to a height of seventy feet, and measures at its base one thousand feet in circumference. Other and still larger earthworks have been noted, such as the truncated pyramid at Cahokia, Illinois, which, while it remained intact, occupied an area upwards of two thousand feet in circumference, and reared its level summit, of several acres in extent, to a height of ninety feet. But this last belongs to a different class from the sepulchral mounds which appear to be unsurpassed by any known works of their kind. “We have seen mounds,” remarks Flint, an American topographer, with a just appreciation of the relation of these earthworks to the features of the surrounding landscape, “which would require the labour of a thousand men employed on our canals, with all their mechanical aids, and the improved implements of their labour, for months. We have more than once hesitated in view of one of those prodigious mounds, whether it were not really a natural hill. But they are uniformly so placed, in reference to the adjacent country, and their conformation is so unique and similar, that no eye hesitates long in referring them to the class of artificial erections.” The exploration of these huge earth pyramids has set at rest any doubts as to their artificial origin; and has, moreover, established the fact that they are structures erected to perpetuate the memory of the honoured dead in ages utterly forgotten, and by a race of which they preserve almost the sole remaining vestiges.

The works of the Mound-Builders extend over a wide area, and include many other structures besides those of a sepulchral character. The people by whom they were executed must have been in a condition very different from the forest tribes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nevertheless, though congregated at many favourite points in large communities, they may have been isolated by extensive tracts of forest from the regions beyond the river-systems on which they were settled. The country lying remote from the larger tributaries of the Mississippi was probably in the era of the Mound-Builders, as in later times, covered with forest; while perchance on outlying regions, or beyond the great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, the progenitors of modern Indian tribes lurked: like the barbarians of ante-Christian Europe, beyond the Rhine and the Baltic.

The fertile valley of the Scioto appears to have been one of the seats of densest population, as indicated by the numerous works which diversify its surface. Corresponding evidence preserves the traces of an equally numerous population in the Miami Valley; and the mounds and earthworks of various kinds throughout the state of Ohio are estimated at between eleven and twelve thousand. They are stated to be scarcely less numerous on the Kenhawas in Virginia than on the Scioto and Miamis, and are abundant on the White River and Wabash, as also upon the Kentucky, Cumberland, Tennessee, and numerous other tributaries of the Ohio and Mississippi. Works accumulated in such numbers, and, including many of great magnitude and elaborateness of design, executed by the combined labour of large bodies of workmen, afford indisputable evidence of a settled and industrious population. Beyond those carefully explored regions, traces of other ancient structures have been observed at widely separated points; though caution must be exercised in generalising from data furnished by casual and inexperienced observers. All primitive earthworks, whether for defence, sepulchral memorials, or religious rites, have certain features in common; and the tendency of the popular mind is rather to exaggerate chance resemblances into forced analogies and parallels, than to exercise any critical discrimination. Including, however, all large earthworks essentially dissimilar from the slight structures of the modern Indian, they appear to stretch from the upper waters of the Ohio to the westward of Lake Erie, and thence along Lake Michigan, nearly to the Copper Regions of Lake Superior. Examples of a like character have been traced through Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Nebraska Territory; while in the south their area is bounded by the shores of the Gulf of Florida and the Mexican territory, where they seem gradually to lose their distinctive character, and pass into the great teocallis of a higher developed Mexican architecture. Their affinities are indeed more southern than northern. They are scarcely, if at all, to be found to the eastward of the water-shed between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, in the States of Pennsylvania, New York, or Virginia; and they have been rightly designated, from their chief site, the Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, including those of its tributaries, and especially of the valley of the Ohio. There their localities fully accord with those which, in the primitive history of the Old World, reveal the most abundant traces of an aboriginal population, in their occupation of the broad alluvial terraces, or “river bottoms,” as they are styled. To the north the memorials of an ancient population are of a different character; and the earthworks in the vicinity of the Great Lakes must be classed by themselves, as indicating distinct customs and rites.

The remarkable works thus traceable over so large an extent of the North American continent admit of being primarily arranged into the two subdivisions of Enclosures and Mounds, and those again embrace a variety of works evidently designed for very different uses. Under the first of these heads are included the fortifications or strongholds; the sacred enclosures, destined, as is assumed, for religious rites; and numerous miscellaneous works of the same class, generally symmetrical in structure, but the probable use of which it is difficult to determine. The second subdivision embraces the true mound-buildings, including what have been specially designated sacrificial, sepulchral, temple, and animal-mounds. All partake of characteristics pertaining to a broad level country; but this is nowhere so strikingly apparent as where mounds seem to have been purposely erected as observatories or points of sight from whence to survey the works elaborated on a gigantic scale on the level plain. In addition to the striking features which their external aspect exhibits: wherever they have been excavated interesting relics of the ancient builders have been disclosed, adding many graphic illustrations of their social condition, and of the artistic and industrial arts of the period to which they pertain.

The British hill-forts, the remarkable vitrified forts of Scotland, and the larger strongholds of the British aborigines, such as the ingenious circumvallations of the White Caterthun overlooking the valley of Strathmore, all derive their peculiar character from the mountainous features of the country; while on the low ground, under the shadow of the Ochils, the elaborate earthworks of the Camp of Ardoch show the strikingly contrasting castrametation of the Roman invaders. The ancient raths of Ireland, which abound in the level districts of that country, as well as on heights where stone is not readily accessible, also furnish highly interesting illustrations of earthworks with a special character derived from the features of their localities. An earthen _dune_ or _rath_, as in the celebrated Rath Keltair at Downpatrick, occupies a commanding site, where it is strongly entrenched, with a considerable space of ground enclosed within its outworks. The celebrated Hill of Tara, in the county of Meath, ceased, according to tradition, to be the chief seat of the Irish kings, since its desertion in the latter part of the sixth century, shortly after the death of Dermot, the son of Fergus. It appears to have been a fortified city; and now, after the devastations of thirteen centuries, its dunes, circumvallations and trenches, present many interesting points of comparison with the more extensive earthworks of the Mississippi valley. But neither the Scottish White Caterthun, nor the Irish Bath Keltair, or even the Rath Righ of Tara Hill, can compare with the remarkable American stronghold of Fort Hill, Ohio, or Fort Ancient on the Little Miami River, in the same State.

The valley of the Mississippi is a vast sedimentary basin extending from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains. Through this the great river and its numerous tributaries have made their way for countless ages, working out shallow depressions in the plain, on which are recorded successive epochs of change in the terraces that mark the deserted levels of ancient channels. The edges of these table-lands bordering on the valleys are indented by numerous ravines; and the junctions of many lesser streams with the rivers have formed nearly detached peninsulas, or in some cases tracts of considerable elevation insulated from the original table-land. Many of those bluff headlands, peninsulas, and isolated hills presented all the requisite adaptations for native strongholds. They have, accordingly, been fortified with great labour and skill. Embankments and ditches enclose the whole space, varying in strength according to the natural resources of the ground. The approaches are guarded by trenches and overlapping walls, more or less numerous in different forts; and have occasionally a mound alongside of the other defences of the approach, but rising above the rest of the works, as if designed both for out-look and additional defence. In some few cases the walls of these enclosures are of stone, but if they were ever characterised by any attempt at regular masonry all traces of it have disappeared, and there seems little reason for supposing that such walls differed in essential character from the earthworks. No cement was used, and in all probability we have in them only the substitution of stone-heaps instead of earth-banks, owing to special local facilities.

One of the simplest, but most extensive of those primitive strongholds, is Fort Hill, Ohio. The defences occupy the summit of a height, elevated about five hundred feet above the bed of Bush Creek, which flows round two sides of the hill, close to their precipitous slope. Along the edge of this hill a deep ditch has been cut, and the materials taken from it have been piled up into an embankment, rising from six to fifteen feet above the bottom of the ditch. In its whole extent the wall measures eight thousand two hundred and twenty-four feet, or upwards of a mile and a half in length; and encloses an area of forty-eight acres, now covered with gigantic forest-trees. One of them, a chestnut, measured twenty-one feet, and an oak, though greatly decayed, twenty-three feet in circumference, while the trunks of immense trees lay around in every stage of decay. Such was the aspect of Fort Hill, Ohio, a few years ago, and it is probably in no way changed now. Dr. Hildreth counted eight hundred rings of annual growth in a tree which grew on one of the mounds at Marietta, Ohio; and Messrs. Squier and Davis, from the age and condition of the forest, ascribed an antiquity to its deserted site of considerably more than a thousand years. In their present condition, therefore, the walls of “Fort Hill” are ruins of an older date than the most venerable stronghold of the Normans of England; and we see as little of their original completeness, as in the crumbling Norman keep we are able to trace all the complex system of bastions, curtains, baileys, buttress-towers, and posterns, of the military architecture of the twelfth century. Openings occur in the walls, in some places on the steepest points of the hill, where access is impossible; and where, therefore, we must rather suppose that platforms may have been projected to defend more accessible points. The ditch has in many places been cut through sandstone rock as well as soil; and at one point the rock is quarried out so as to leave a mural front about twenty feet high. Large ponds or artificial reservoirs for water have been made within the enclosure; and at the southern point, where the natural area of this stronghold contracts into a narrow and nearly insulated projection terminating in a bold bluff, it rises to a height of thirty feet above the bottom of the ditch, and has its own special reservoirs, as if here were the keep and citadel of the fortress: doubtless originally strengthened with palisades and military works, of which every trace had disappeared before the ancient forest asserted its claim to the deserted fortalice. Here then, it is obvious we look on no temporary retreat of some nomadic horde, but on a military work of great magnitude; which, even with all the appliances of modern engineering skill, would involve the protracted operations of a numerous body of labourers, and when completed must have required a no less numerous garrison for its defence. The contrast is very striking between such elaborate works and the most extensive of those still traceable in Western New York the origin of which appears to be correctly assigned to Iroquois and other tribes known to have been in occupation of their sites in comparatively recent times.

Among the native Indian tribes who have come under direct observation of Europeans, none played a more prominent part than the Iroquois. At the period of Dutch discovery in the beginning of the seventeenth century, they occupied the territory between the Hudson and the Genesee rivers, of which they continued to maintain possession for nearly two centuries, in defiance of warlike native foes, and the more formidable aggression of the French invaders. Their numbers, at the period of their greatest prosperity, about the middle of the seventeenth century, have been variously estimated from 70,000, which La Hontan assigned to them, to the more probable estimate of 25,000 given by the historian of their League. Very exaggerated pictures have been drawn by some modern writers of the Iroquois confederacy. It was a union of tribes of savage hunters, among whom only the germs of incipient civilisation are traceable. They had indeed acquired settled habits, and devoted themselves to some extent to agriculture. But with all the matured arts resulting from combined action in the maintenance of their territory for successive generations against fierce hostile tribes, and the defence of an extensive frontier constantly exposed to invasion, the traces of the Iroquois strongholds are of so slight a description that many of them have already been obliterated by the plough.

From the facts thus presented to our consideration, it is obvious that the highest estimate we can entertain of the powers of combination indicated by the famous League of the Iroquois, furnishes no evidence of a capacity for the construction and maintenance of works akin to the strongholds of the Mound-Builders in the Ohio valley. Striking as is the contrast which the Iroquois present to more ephemeral savage tribes, the remains of their earthworks present in some respects a greater contrast to those of the Mound-Builders than the latter do to the elaborate architecture of Mexico and Yucatan. There are indeed points of resemblance between the strongholds of the two, as there are between them and the British hill-forts, or any other earthworks erected on similar sites; but beyond such general elements of comparison,—equally interesting, but as little indicative of any community of origin as the correspondence traceable between the flint and stone weapons in use by the builders of both,—there is nothing in such resemblances calculated to throw any light on the origin of those remarkable monuments of the New World. It is rather from the contrast between the two that we may turn the remains of Iroquois defences to account, as suggestive of a greatly more advanced condition of social life and the arts of a settled population among the Mound-Builders of the Mississippi and its tributaries.

Further proofs of the settled character of this ancient population are furnished by another class of defensive works, supposed to mark the sites of fortified towns. One of these, called “Clark’s Work,” on the north fork of Point Creek, in the Scioto valley, embraces an area of one hundred and twenty-seven acres; and encloses within its circumvallations sacrificial mounds, and symmetrical earthworks assumed with every probability to have been designed for religious or civic purposes. A stream has been turned into an entirely new channel, in order to admit of the completed circuit of the walls. “The embankments measure together nearly three miles in length; and a careful computation shows that, including mounds, not less than three million cubic feet of earth were used in their composition.”[83] Within the enclosures thus laboriously executed, many of the most interesting relics of ancient art have been dug up, including several coiled serpents of carved stone, carefully enveloped in sheet mica and copper; pottery, fragments of carved ivory, discoidal stones, and numerous fine sculptures.

It is obvious that the population capable of furnishing the requisite labour for works of so extensive a nature must have been numerous, and its resources for the maintenance of such a phalanx of workers proportionally abundant. The garrisons of the great strongholds, and the population that found shelter within such mural defences as “Clark’s Work,” must also have been very large, requiring for their subsistence the contributions of an extensive district. But this only accords with other proofs of the condition of the Mound-Builders as a settled people. When we turn from the consideration of single large fortifications crowning the insulated heights, and estimate the number and extent of mounds, symmetrical enclosures, and works of various kinds connected with the arts of peace and the rites of religious worship, which give so striking a character to the river-valleys and terraces, it is no longer possible to doubt that many sections of this fertile region were once before filled by an industrious, settled population.

The Sacred Enclosures have been separated from the military works of the Mound-Builders on very obvious grounds. Their elaborate fortifications occupy isolated heights specially adapted for defence; whereas the broad river-terraces have been selected for their religious works. There, on the great unbroken levels, they form groups of symmetrical enclosures, square, circular, elliptical, and octagonal, with long connecting avenues, suggesting comparisons with the British Avebury, or the Hebridean Callernish; with the Breton Carnac; or even with the temples and Sphinx-avenues of the Egyptian Karnak and Luxor.

The predominant impression suggested by the great military earthworks of the Mound-Builders is that of the action of a numerous population, co-operating under the guidance and authority of approved leaders, with a view to the defence of large communities. Elaborate fortifications such as that of “Clark’s Work” in the Scioto Valley, or “Fort Ancient” on the Little Miami River, are constructed on well-chosen hills or bluffs, and strengthened by ditches, mounds, and complicated approaches; but the lines of earthwork, like those of the great Scottish hill-forts, are everywhere adapted to the natural features of the site. With the sacred enclosures it is wholly different. Some of these also do, indeed, impress the mind with the imposing scale of their embankments. On first entering the great circle at Newark, and looking across its broad trench at the lofty embankment overshadowed with full-grown forest-trees, my thoughts reverted to the Antonine vallum, which by like evidence still records the presence of the Roman masters of the world in North Britain. But after driving over a circuit of several miles embracing the remarkable group of earthworks of which this is only a single feature, and satisfying myself by personal observation of the existence of parallel avenues which have been traced for nearly two miles; and of the grand central oval, circle, and octagon, the smallest of which measures upwards of half-a-mile in circumference: all idea of mere combined labour is lost in the higher conviction of manifest skill, and even science. The angles of the octagon are not coincident, but the sides are very nearly equal; and the enclosure approaches so closely to a perfect figure that its error is only demonstrated by actual survey. Connected with it by parallel embankments 350 feet long, is a true circle, measuring 2880 feet in circumference; and distant nearly a mile from this, but connected with it by an elaborate series of earthworks, is the circular structure above referred to. Its actual form is an ellipse, the respective diameters of which are 1250 feet, and 1150 feet, respectively; and it encloses an area of upwards of 30 acres.

At the entrance of this great circle the enclosing embankment curves outward on either side for a distance of 100 feet, leaving a level way between the ditches, 80 feet wide. The earthen mound, which is here higher than at any other point, measures about 30 feet from the bottom of the ditch to the summit. The area of the enclosure is so nearly a perfect level that Mr. J. M. Dennis, to whose intimate local knowledge I was indebted for a thorough survey of the works, informed me that he had observed during the rains of the previous spring the water stood at a uniform level nearly to the edge of the ditch. In the centre of this enclosure is an earthen mound, still called “The Eagle.” Mr. Squier says of it: “It much resembles some of the animal-shaped mounds of Wisconsin, and was probably designed to represent a bird with expanded wings.” It has been opened and found to contain a hearth, or “altar.” The fact is important; as it distinguishes it in this respect essentially from the emblematic mounds of Wisconsin, and tends to confirm the idea that the great circle and its related groups of earthworks all bore some reference to sacred games, or other strange rites of religion, once practised within their circumvallations. But successive excavations have greatly marred the original contour of the mound; and now that, with a view to the preservation of the principla earthwork, it has been secured as the Licking County fair ground, the erection of a grand stand on the summit of the Eagle Mound has contributed still further to obscure the traces of its primary form.

From the elliptical enclosure a wide avenue of two dissimilar parts, seemingly constructed without relation to each other, leads to a square of twenty acres, with seven mounds disposed symmetrically within the enclosing walls, and numerous other works occupy hundreds of acres with their geometrical configurations. But in spite of the intelligent interest which prevails in reference to those remarkable monuments of an ancient people, the industrial operations of the modern occupants of their sites are fast obliterating all but the most prominent works. In the great octagon I noticed a difference of nearly five feet between the height of the embankments still standing on uncleared land, and those portions which have been long under the plough. But for the aid of my intelligent guide I should have found it impossible to trace out the indications of the parallel ways; and already many of the smaller mounds and enclosures have entirely disappeared. Roads, railways, and a canal, have successively invaded the sacred enclosures, and wrought more changes in a single generation than had been effected in all the previous interval since the discovery of America. But the accompanying plan (Fig. 70), derived from surveys executed while the chief earthworks could still be traced in all their integrity, will enable the reader to comprehend their character; and if he clearly realises the scale on which these geometrical figures are constructed, he can be at no loss in recognising their essential difference from the ephemeral earthworks which mark the sites of Indian stockades or sepulchral mounds. While they present certain analogies to mound-groups and enclosures both of Europe and Asia, in many other respects they are totally dissimilar: and illustrate rites and customs of an ancient American people without a parallel among the monumental memorials of the Old World.

Several striking coincidences between the details of these works and others of the same class are worthy of notice. The diameter of the circle, the perfect form of which has been noted, is nearly identical with two others forming parts of remarkable groups in the Scioto valley, one of them seventy miles distant. The square has also the same area as a rectangular enclosure belonging to the “Hopeton Works,” where it is attached to a circle 1050 feet in diameter, and to an avenue constructed between two parallel embankments 2400 feet long, leading to the edge of a bank immediately over the river-flat of the Scioto. A like coincidence in the precise extent of the area enclosed has been noticed in the octagon of a group, called the High Bank Works, on the same river-terrace; and in another, at the junction of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers. The authors of the elaborate surveys embodied in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, remark generally that the figures of the Scioto valley earthworks are not only accurate squares and perfect circles, but are in most cases of corresponding dimensions; each square being 1080 feet a side, and the diameter of each of the larger and smaller circles a fraction over 1700 and 800 feet. This they observe is “a coincidence which could not possibly be accidental, and which must possess some significance. It certainly establishes the existence of some standard of measurement among the ancient people, if not the possession of some means of determining angles.”[84] It is no less important to note that it establishes the use of instruments. A standard of measurement could not otherwise exist, still less be applied, on so large a scale in geometrical construction; and the very simplest instruments that we can conceive of, constitute no less certain evidence of a condition of intellectual development attained by this ancient people very different from anything achieved by the most advanced Indian tribes. Varied, moreover, as the combinations of their singular groups of earthworks are, traces are clearly discernible that certain well-defined plans of construction, and a proportionate scale of parts, guided their builders. Justly estimating the importance of such coincidences, and the still greater value of the evidence of the construction of geometric figures on so large a scale, the authors of the surveys have detailed their method of procedure, in order “to put at once all scepticism at rest, which might otherwise arise as to the regularity of these works.” This important point rests accordingly on the most satisfactory evidence;[85] nor are even the imperfections observed in the construction of some of the rectangular figures without their significance, as a test of the extent to which geometry had been mastered by the ancient builders.

That this remarkable class of earthworks originated in some totally different purpose from the strongholds already described, is obvious. Their site is invariably on a level plateau, and their avenues are connected with the neighbouring flats by laboriously constructed approaches, as if to facilitate the solemn march of processions. The embankments are frequently slight; where a ditch occurs it is generally in the interior; and their whole construction is in striking contrast to the defensive enclosures in their vicinity. At Newark they extend over the level terrace, and, with outlying structures, embrace an area of several miles in extent; while on each side of the Valley, formed by the Racoon Creek, military works occupy prominent elevations presenting special natural advantages for defence. One of those, obviously of a defensive character, encloses the summit of a high hill; but it also contains a small circle with tumuli, covering “altars” corresponding to those hereafter described, which give their peculiar character to the sacred mounds. There is no room, therefore, for doubt that the various works referred to illustrate what may be styled the civil, military, and ecclesiastical structures of the same people, including in the latter public games, such as among many ancient nations constituted one special feature of their religious festivals.

One important inference deducible from the peculiar features of the works here referred to, is the state of knowledge of their constructors. The most skilful engineer of our own day would find it difficult, without the aid of instruments, to lay down an accurate square on the scale of some of those described, enclosing an area four-fifths of a mile in circumference. Circles of moderate dimensions might indeed be constructed, so long as it was possible to describe them by a radius; but with such works measuring five thousand four hundred feet, or upwards of a mile in circumference, the ancient geometrician must have had instruments, and means of measuring arcs: for it seems impossible to conceive of the accurate construction of figures on such a scale, otherwise than by finding the angle by its arc, from station to station, through the whole course of their delineation. It is no less obvious from the correspondence in area and relative proportions of so many of the regular enclosures, that the Mound-Builders possessed a recognised standard of measurement; and that some peculiar significance, possibly of astronomical origin, was attached to figures of certain forms and dimensions.

The city of Cincinnati occupies a remarkable site, within a fine basin of hills, on the Ohio river, which had for its older occupants the remarkable people now referred to. But the growth of the modern city has swept away every vestige of their old earthworks; and no definite record of their details has been preserved. One memorial, however, survives, which was discovered in 1841, when excavating a large mound within the limits of the city. It has been the subject of ingenious speculations; and may have some bearing on our present investigations. In the centre of the mound, slightly below the level of the natural surface, a skeleton was found greatly decayed, alongside of which lay two pointed bones, about seven inches long, formed from the tibia of the elk, and the engraved tablet shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 71). It is made of fine-grained sandstone, and measures five inches in length, by two and six-tenths across the middle, and three inches at the ends. Upon its smooth surface an elaborate figure is represented, by sinking the interspaces within a rectangular border, so as to produce what has been regarded by some as a hieroglyphic inscription. But the most remarkable feature of its graven device is the series of lines by which the plain surface at each end is divided. The ends of the stone, it will be observed, form arcs of circles of different dimensions. The greater arc is divided by a series of lines, twenty-seven in number, into equal spaces, and within this is another series of seven oblique lines. The lesser arc at the opposite end is divided in like manner by two series of twenty-five and eight lines, similarly arranged. This tablet has not failed to receive due attention. It has been noted that it bears a “singular resemblance to the Egyptian cartouche.” Its series of lines were discovered to yield, in the sum of the products of the longer and shorter ones, a near approximation to the number of days of the year. An astronomical origin was accordingly assigned to it; and it has been surmised to be an ancient calendar, recording the approximation of the Mound-Builders to the true length of the solar year. Mr. Squier perhaps runs to an opposite extreme in suggesting that it is nothing more than a stamp, of which specimens have been found made of clay, both in Mexico and in the Mississippi mounds; and which were probably used in impressing ornamental patterns on cloth or prepared skins. Such clay stamps always betray their purpose by the handle attached to them, as in the corresponding bronze stamps common on Roman sites; whereas the Cincinnati tablet is about half an inch in thickness, with no means of holding or using it as a stamp, and bears on its unfinished reverse grooves apparently made in sharpening the tools by which it was engraved. But whatever theory be adopted as to its original object or destination, the series of lines on its two ends have justly attracted attention: for they constitute no part of the device; and can scarcely be regarded as an ornamental border. Possibly in them we have a record of certain scales of measurement in use by the Mound-Builders; and if so, the discovery is calculated to add fresh interest to our study of the geometrical structures, which, far more than their great mounds, are the true characteristics of that mysterious people.[86]

The precise objects aimed at in the construction of the remarkable series of American earthworks here referred to must obviously be difficult to determine with certainty. Analogies to these structures have been traced in the works of Indian tribes formerly in occupation of Carolina and Georgia. They were accustomed to erect a circular terrace or platform on which their council-house stood. In front of this, a quadrangular area was enclosed with earthen embankments, within which public games were played and captives tortured. To this was sometimes added a square or quadrangular terrace at the opposite end of the enclosure. Upon the circular platform it is also affirmed that the sacred fire was maintained by the Creek Indians, as part of their most cherished rites as worshippers of the sun. But even the evidence, thus far, is vague and unsatisfactory; and any recognisable analogies point, at best, only to the possibility of some of the Indian tribes having perpetuated on a greatly inferior scale some maimed rites borrowed from their civilised precursors. The scale upon which the Southern Indian earthworks were constructed may compare with those of the Iroquois in the State of New York, but in no degree approximates to the erections of the Mound-Builders. What, for example, shall we make of the graded ways, such as that of Piketon, Ohio, where an approach has been laboriously formed from one terrace to another, one thousand and eighty feet long by two hundred and fifteen feet in greatest width? The excavated earth has been employed, in part, to construct lofty embankments on each side of the ascent, which are now covered with trees of large size. Beyond this approach, mounds and half-obliterated earthworks indicate that it was only part of an extensive series of structures. But, viewed alone, it is one of the most remarkable monuments of prehistoric times to be found on the whole continent, and certainly bears not the slightest resemblance, either in its character or the great scale on which it is executed, to any known work of the Red Indians.

[83] _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, pp. 26-29, plate x.

[84] _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, p. 48.

[85] _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, p. 57.

[86] The woodcut is engraved from a rubbing taken from the original. Mr. Whittlesey has included this tablet among his “Archæological Frauds”; but the result of inquiries made by me during a recent visit to Cincinnati has removed from my mind any doubt of its genuineness.