Ancient WorJcs in the Ohio Valley. ' 185 



displayed, and stretching away for miles, without arriving at the con- 

 clusion that they are the result of an infinite amount of toil, expended 

 under the direction of a governing mind, and having in view a definite 

 aim. At this day— with our iron implements, with our labor-saving 

 machines, and the aid of horse power— to accomplish such a task would 

 require the labor of many thousand men continued for many months. 

 These are the work of a people who had fixed habitations, and who, 

 deriving their support, in part, at least, from the soil, could devote 

 their surplus labor to the rearing of such structures. A migratory 

 people, dependent, upon the uncertainties of the chase for a livnig, 

 would not have the time, nor would there be the motive, to engage in 

 such a stupendous imdertaking. 



When in the spring of 1788 the first settlers, under the Ohio Land 

 Company's purchase, arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum, where 

 they proposed to lay the foundations of a town, they were astonished 

 at these evidences of former occupancy by a people who had some 

 claims to be ranked as civilized. The Directors passed a resolution, 

 reserving the two truncated pyramids and the great mound, with a 

 few acres attached to each, as public squares. The latter is now used 

 as a public cemetery; and the rites of Christian burial, as enacted 

 there each year, are probably not more solemn and impressive than 

 those which were enacted upon the same spot centuries ago, by a 

 people whose very name and lineage have become lost. 



These works, as shown by the survey of Colonel Whittlesey, occupy 

 the river terrace or second bottom, being bounded by the alluvium 

 on the one hand and the hills on the other. The area covered is 

 about three fourths of a mile long, and half a mde broad. There are 

 two irregular squares — one containing fifty acres, and the other twenty 

 seven acres— together with the crowning work standing apart, which 

 is a mound thirty feet high, elliptical in form, and inclosed by a cir- 

 cular embankment. The walls of the larger square are between five 

 and six feet high, and twenty or thirty feet broad at the base. With- 

 in the inclosure are four truncated pyramids, three of which have 

 graded passage-ways to the summit. The largest is one hundred and 

 eighty-eight feet long, one hundred and thirty-two feet wide, and ten 

 feet high. These pyramidal forms are interesting, as establishing an 

 affinity between their builders and those of the Gulf States, who, to a 

 great extent, as has been shown, discarded the circular form. From 

 the southern wall a graded way, one hundred and fifty feet broad, and 

 lined by embankments from eight to ten feet high, extends for six 

 hundred feet, to the immediate valley of the Muskingum. 



The walls bounding the smaller square are less conspicuous, and 



