18 A N CIENT M NU MENTS. 



narrow passages between its ends and the steeps on either hand. Next conies the 

 principal wall of the enclosure. In event of an attack, even though both these 

 defences were carried, there still remains a series of walls so complicated as 

 inevitably to distract and bewilder the assailants, thus giving a marked advantage to 

 the defenders. This advantage may have been much greater than we, in our igno- 

 rance of the military system of this ancient people, can understand. But, from the 

 manifest judgment with Avhich their defensive positions were chosen, as well as 

 from the character of their entrenchments, so far as we comprehend them, it is 

 safe to conclude that all parts of this work were the best calculated to secure the 

 objects proposed by the builders, under the modes of attack and defence then 

 practised. 



The coincidences between the guarded entrances of this and similai* works 

 throughout the West, and those of the Mexican defences, is singulai'ly striking. 

 The wall on the eastern side of the Tlascalan territories, mentioned by Cortez and 

 Bernal Diaz, was sLx miles long, having a single entrance thirty leet wide, which 

 was formed in the manner represented in the supplementary plan A. The ends of 

 the wall overlapped each other, in the form of semicircles, having a common 

 centre.* 



PLATE VII. 



"fort ancient," warren county, oiiio.f 



One of the most extensive, if not the most extensive, work of this class, in the 

 entire West, occurs on the banks of the Little Miami river, about thirty-five 

 miles north-east from Cincinnati, in Warren county, Ohio. It has not far from 

 four miles of embankment, for the most part very heavy, rising, at the more accessi- 

 ble points, to the height of eighteen and twenty feet. The accompanying map is 

 from a faithful survey, made by Prof Locke, of Cincinnati, and published by him 

 amongst the papers of the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists, in 



* De Solis describes this Tlascalan work as " a great wall which ran from one mountain to the other, 

 entirely stopping up the way : a sumptuous and strong piece of building which showed the power and 

 greatness of the owner. The outside was of hewn stune cemented with moi'tar of extraordinary strength. 

 It was twenty feet thick and a fathom and a half high ; and on the top was a parapet after the manner 

 of our fortitications. The entrance was narrow and winding ; the wall in that part dividing and making 

 two walls, which circularly crossed each other for the space of ten paces," — History of the Conquest of 

 Mexico, p. 139. 



f An account of this work, accompanied by a very good plan, appeared in the " Portfolio," (a 

 periodical published in Philadelphia,) for the year 1809. Both plan and description were copied by 

 Mr. Atwater, in his memoir, in the first volume of the " Archseologia Americana." It was also briefly 

 described by Dr. Drake, in the chapter on Antiquities contained in his " View of Cincinnati." Since 

 that period, it has been the object of frequent visit and remark 



