W R K S F D E F E N C E . 29 



mounds, — all go to sustain the conclusion, that this was a fortified town or city of 

 the ancient people. The history of its fall, if its strange monuments could speak, 

 would perhaps tell of heroic defence of homes and altars, and of daring achieve- 

 ments in siege and assault. 



The amount of labor expeoded in the construction of this work, in view of the 

 imperfect means at the connnand of the builders, is imnrense. The embankments 

 measure together nearly three miles in length ; and a careful computation shows 

 that, including mounds, not less than three milhons cubic feet of earth were used 

 in their composition. 



Within this work, some of the most interesting discoveries recorded in this 

 volume were made. 



PLATE XI. No. 1. 



[ From the Surveys and Notes of James McBrlde. ] 



This highly interesting work is situated in Butler county, Ohio, on the banks 

 of Seven Mile creek, five miles north of the town of Hamilton. It is formed by 

 two irregular lines of embankment, and an exterior ditch, cutting off a jutting 

 point of the second terrace ; and has an area of twenty-five acres. These 

 embankments are parallel throughout, and were evidently both made from the 

 same ditch. The outer one has an average height of four, the inner one of 

 three feet. The ditch is between five and six feet deep, by thirty-five feet wide. 

 At the southern portion of the work, both walls and the ditch have their greatest 

 dimensions. The side of the work next the stream is bounded by an abrupt 

 natural bank, eighteen feet high. Distant a few rods from the north-eastern angle 

 of the work, is an elliptical mound eleven feet high ; its conjugate and transverse 

 diameters are ninety-two and one hundred and eighteen feet respectively. 



This work has a single gateway thirty feet wide. The inner wall, near its 

 southern extremity, curves inward along the terrace-bank for a considerable dis- 

 tance. The first, or creek terrace, is a low alluvion, not subject to overflow. It 

 is evident, however, that the creek once ran at the base of the natural bank (now 

 bounding one side of this work), probably at the period of its construction and 

 occupancy. 



PLATE XI. No. 2. 



This work affords a very fair illustration of one portion of the defensive struc- 

 tures of the West, already alluded to in the general remarks on the subject, at the 



