262 FORTIFICATIONS. EARTHWORKS. 



the Atlantic, and are very scarce in British America and on 

 the west of the Eocky Mountains. 



The works belonging to this class " usually occupy strong 

 natural positions," and as a fair specimen of them we may 

 take the Bourneville Enclosure in Eoss County, Ohio, which 

 consists of a wall of stone, which is carried round the hill a 

 little below the brow ; but at some places it rises, so as to cut 

 off the narrow spurs, and extends across the neck that connects 

 the hill with the range beyond. It must not, however, be 

 understood that anything like a true wall now exists ; the 

 present appearance is rather what might have been " expected 

 from the falling outwards of a wall of stones, placed, as this 

 was, upon the declivity of a hill/' Where it is most distinct 

 it is from fifteen to twenty feet wide, by three or four in 

 height. The area thus enclosed is about one hundred and 

 forty acres, and the wall is two miles and a quarter in length. 

 The stones themselves vary much in size, and Messrs. Squier 

 and Davis suggest that the wall may originally have been 

 about eight feet high, with an equal base. At present, trees 

 of the largest size are growing upon it. On a similar work 

 known as " Fort Hill/ 5 Highland County, Ohio, Messrs. Squier 

 and Davis found a splendid chestnut tree, which they suppose 

 to be six hundred years old. " If," they say, " to this we add 

 the probable period intervening from the time of the building 

 of this work to its abandonment, and the subsequent period 

 up to its invasion by the forest, we are led irresistibly to the 

 conclusion that it has an antiquity of at least one thousand 

 years. But when we notice, all around us, the crumbling 

 trunks of trees, half hidden in the accumulating soil, we are 

 induced to fix on an antiquity still more remote/' 



The enclosure known as " Clark's Work," in Eoss County, 

 Ohio, is one of the largest and most interesting. It consists 

 of a parallelogram, two thousand eight hundred feet by 



