THE CINCINKATI QUAETEELT 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



Vol. L OCTOBER, 1874. No. 4. 



Some Facts and Considerations about Fort Ancient, Warren County, 



Ohio. By L. M. Hosea, Esq. 



Arcliseology, which, as has been well said by Sir John Lubbock, is 

 the link between geology and history, has of late years assumed an 

 importance in the scientific world second to no other branch of inves- 

 tigation. In various quarters the mists hitherto enshrouding the early 

 history and condition of mankind seem to be breaking away, and we 

 may hope at some day to be able to trace back the devious line of 

 struggling humanity to where it first emerges from absolute barbarism, 

 or possibly from a lower scale of physical being, unless our investiga- 

 tions ultimately lead us to a higher state of primitive civilization from 

 which the rude condition of the stone age was a degradation. Al- 

 though a science yet in its infancy, it has borne fruits of no mean im- 

 portance, as we must admit when we consider the investigations of Dr. 

 Schliemanu, upon the site of ancient Troy; of JNIr. George Smith, in 

 Assyria ; and of Auguste Mariette, in Egypt ; to say nothing of the 

 labors of antiquarian geologists who have antedated man's existence 

 some thousands of years by the discovery of human remains and works 

 of art coeval with older geologic periods. 



It is much to be hoped that the enthusiasm for archaeological inves- 

 tigation, so prevalent among European scholars, may develop in this 

 country a corresponding emulation which will throw light upon the 

 mysterious monuments of an antiquity peculiarly our own. It seems 

 hardly credible that a nation like ours, occupying a front rank in all 

 that marks a refined culture, should so long remain indifferent to those 

 evidences in our midst — yearly impaired by time and the hand of im- 

 provement — of ancient empires, possibly older than those of the 

 so called old world. 



