VV RKS K D E FEN C E. H 



PLATE IV.* 



STOJVE WOllK, NKAR BOCRNEVILLE, ROSS COUNTY, OHIO. 



This work occupies the suiiiinit ot" a lofty, detached hill, twelve miles westward 

 from the city of Chillicothe, near the village of Bourneville. The hill is not far 

 from four hundred teet in perpendicular height ; and is remarkable, even among the 

 steep hills of the West, for the general abruptness of its sides, which at some 

 points are absolutely inaccessible. It is the advance point of a range of hills, 

 situated between the narrow valleys of two small creeks; and projects midway into 

 the broad valley of Paint creek, so as to constitute its most prominent natural 

 feature. It is a conspicuous object from every point of view. Its summit is a wide 

 and fertile plain, with occasional considerable depressions, some of which contain 

 water during the entire year. 



The defences consist of a wall of stone which is carried around the hill, a httle 

 below the brow ; but at some places it rises, so as to cut oft" the narrow spurs, and 

 extends across the neck that connects the hill with the range beyond. It should not 

 be understood by the term wall, that, at this time, anything like a wall of stones 

 regularly laid up exists ; on the contrary, where the line is best preserved, there is 

 little evidence that the stones were laid one upon the other so as to present vertical 

 faces, much less that they were cemented in place. At a few points, however, more 

 particularly at the isthmus D, there are some indications of arrangement in the 

 stones, tending to the belief that the wall here may have been regularly faced on 

 the exterior. The appearance of the line, for the most part, is just what might be 

 expected from the /ailing outwards of a wall of stones placed, as this was, upon the 

 declivity of a hill. Upon the western, or steepest face of the hill, the range of 

 stones covers a space varying from tliirty to fifty feet in width, closely resembling 

 the '■^protection waits " carried along the embankments of rail-roads and canals, 

 where exposed to the action of rivers or large streams. But for the amount of 

 stones, it might be taken for a natural feature, — the debris of the out-cropping sand 

 strata. Such, certainly, is the first impression which it produces upon the visitor ; 

 an impression, however, which is speedily corrected upon reaching the points 

 where the -supposed line of debris, rising upon the spurs, forms curved gateways, 

 and then resumes its course as before. 



Upon the eastern face of the hill, where the declivity is least abrupt, the wall is 

 heavier and more distinct than upon the west, resembling a long stone-heap of 

 fifteen or twenty feet base, and from three to four feet in height. Where it crosses 

 the isthmus it is heaviest ; and although stones enough have been removed from it. 



* This work is marked C in the " Map of a Section of Sifi Mites of the Paint Crtek Valki/," Plate III. 



