32 ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 



ings (exaggerated in the plan), one about sixteen feet square, the other about ten 

 feet ; the stones are rough and unhewn. Stretching south, the walls are continued 

 on both sides until they reach the points a a, at a bold limestone bluff, which forms 

 a good natural defence. South of the bluff the walls are continued of the same 

 height and thickness, until they reach the angles of the wall fronting the south 

 which wall also extends from the bank of one river to the other, and has a gateway 

 nearly opposite to that in the northern wall. At the points a a, it is supposed by 

 many who have examined this work, there were formerly excavated passages lead- 

 ing to each branch of Duck river, with steps cut in the rock. There does not, 

 however, appear to be sufficient evidence to sustain this conclusion. The ascent 

 or descent is not very difficult ; the steps appear to be formed by the projection of 

 the rock strata ; and it was no doubt by these passages that the occupants of the 

 work gained access to the river, and were supplied with water. 



" Near the base of the wall on the south side is a ditch, from sixteen to twenty 

 feet wide, and six or eight deep. A short distance farther from the southern wall 

 is another and much more extensive ditch or excavation. In some places it is 

 seventy or eighty feet wide, and from twenty-five to thirty feet deep. The earth 

 from these ditches was probably removed to cover the walls of the fort, or employed 

 in the erection of the neighboring mounds, while the ditches themselves constituted 

 an additional means of defence. 



" About three quarters of a mile north of this work is a mound of an oblong 

 form, about twenty-five feet high, one hundred feet long, and twenty broad. On 

 the north-west, about half a mile distant, is another mound of similar form, twenty 

 feet high, eighty long, and sixty wide. These mounds are constructed with the 

 same regularity that distinguishes all the other works of similar character. On both 

 these mounds, trees are growing as large as any in the surrounding forests. 



" This work differs in its form, and in the material used in its construction, from 

 all others in the vicinity ; but it does not exhibit greater evidence of skill. The 

 difference in form was probably owing to its location ; it having evidently been 

 made to conform in all respects to the nature of the ground. Stones were em- 

 ployed because they could be readily procured. Although the hammer had nothing 

 to do with the preparation of the materials, it was nevertheless a work of great 

 labor, and the place of location was selected with a military eye." 



Numerous other defensive works are represented to exist in Tennessee ; but very 

 few of them have been surveyed and described. In Bedford county there is a stone 

 work of considerable size, the walls of which are said to be from sixteen to twenty 

 feet wide at the base, and four to five feet wide on the top. Other works adjoin it. 

 It is generally believed to have been erected byDe Soto ; but in 1819 an oak-tree 

 standing on the wall was cut down, which exhibited three hundred and fifty-seven 

 annual layers, and must consequently have been seventy-eight years old when De 

 Soto landed in Florida.* 



A stone work, less in size, but of the same general character, occurs in Larue 



* Havwood's Tenii. vol 



