WORKS OF DEFENCE. 41 



" Nothing can be more plain, than that most of the remains in northern Ohio, 

 particularly those on the Cuyahoga river, are military works. There have not yet 

 been found any remnants of timber in the walls ; yet it is very safe to presume that 

 palisades ^^ere planted on them, and that wooden posts and gates were erected at 

 the passages left in the embankments and ditches. 



" All the positions are contiguous to water ; and none of them have higher land 

 in their vicinity, from which they might in any degree be commanded. Of the 

 works bordering on the shore of Lake Erie, through the State of Ohio, there are 

 none but may have been intended for defence; although in some of them the 

 design is not perfectly manifest. They form a line from Conneaut to Toledo, at 

 a distance of from three to five miles from the lake ; and all stand upon or near the 

 principal rivers. There are probably five of them as yet unknown, to one that has 

 been publicly noticed. In the interior of the State, so far as my observation has 

 extended, this class of works is wanting. Their place is supplied by larger works, 

 situated on low lands, their strength depending more on artifice than on position.* 

 They are so different, that I am disposed to regard them, not only as designed for 

 other purposes, but as the work of another and probably later people. 



" The most natural inference in respect to the northern cordon of works is, that 

 they formed a well-occupied line, constructed either to protect the advance of a 

 nation landing from the lake and moving southward for conquest ; or, a line of 

 resistance for a people inhabiting these shores and pressed upon by their southern 

 neighbors. The scarcity of mounds, the absence of pyramids of earth, which are 

 so common on the Ohio, the want of rectangular and other regular works, at the 

 north, — all these differences tend to the conclusion that the northern part of 

 Ohio was occupied by a distinct people. 



" At the north there is generally more than one wall of earth, and the ditches 

 are invariably exterior. There are sometimes passages, or ' sally-ports,' through 

 the outer parallel, and none through the inner one. There is also, in general, a 

 space between the parallels sufficiently large to contain a considerable body of 

 fighting- men. By whatever people these works were built, they were much 

 engaged in oflfensive or defensive wars. At the south, on the other hand, agri- 

 culture and religion seem to have chiefly occupied the attention of the ancient 

 people. 



" In view of the above facts, we may venture to suggest a hypothesis, without 

 undertaking to assign to it any more than a basis of probability. Upon the 

 assumption that two distinct nations occupied the State, — that the northern were 

 warlike, and the southern peaceful and agricultural in their habits, — may we not 

 suppose that the latter were overcome by their northern neighbors, who built the 

 military works to be observed upon the Ohio and its tributaries, while the more 

 regular structures are the remains of the conquered people ? " 



* " There is a small enclosure on the south line of Franklin countj', and another in Pickaway county, 

 which closely resemble those alon^r the lake shore." See Plate XIV, Nos. 1 and 2. 



