42 A N C 1 E N T M N U M E N T S . 



The differences between the northern and southern earthworks, pointed out by 

 Mr. Whittlesey, are not greater than would naturally be exhibited between the 

 structures of a sparse frontier population, and those erected by more central and 

 dense communities. Works, generally corresponding with those her§ described, 

 are found still further to the northward and eastward ; extending to the Genesee 

 river and its tributaries in New- York, and even to the head waters of the Susque- 

 hanna in Pennsylvania, — which seems to have been the extreme limit to which the 

 mound-builders penetrated in that direction. From plans previously presented, it 

 will be seen that precisely analogous works occur in Kentucky and Tennessee. 

 It will be seen also, in a succeeding chapter, on the " Antiquities of the Southern 

 • States," that similar structures are found in Mississippi, and elsewhere along the 

 Gulf. 



The examples of defensive works here presented will serve to give a very 

 accurate conception of this class of structures. By a minute attention to their 

 various details, we are prepared to estimate the judgment, skill, and industry of 

 their builders. No one can rise from such an examination, except Avith the convic- 

 tion that the race, by whom these Avorks were erected, possessed no inconsiderable 

 knowledge of the science of defence, — a degree of knowledge much superior to 

 that known to have been possessed by the hunter tribes of North America pre- 

 vious to the discovery by Columbus, or indeed subsequent to that event. Their 

 number and magnitude must also impress the inquirer with enlarged notions of the 

 power of the people commanding the means for their construction, and whose 

 numbers required such extensive works for their protection. It is not impossible 

 that, like the defensive enclosures of the Polynesian Islanders, they were to a 

 certain extent designed to embrace cultivated fields, so as to furnish the means 

 of subsistence to their defenders, in the event of a protracted siege. There is no 

 other foundation, however, for this suggestion, than that furnished by the great size 

 of some of them. The population that found shelter within their walls must 

 have been exceedingly large, if their dimensions may be taken as the basis of a 

 calculation. 



There is no positive evidence that the mound-builders fully understood the value 

 of the bastion in their works of defence ; although they seem, in some instances, to 

 have secured the {jrojecting points of the hills on which their defences arc situated, 

 w ith a view of enfilading the Avails. The fortified hill near the mouth of the Great 

 Miami, (Plate IX,) and Fort Hill, in Highland county, afford examples. These 

 projecting points could however, from their wide distance apart, but very imper- 

 fectly answer the purpose of bastions ; and the supposition that they Avere thus 

 used is rendered less probable, from the fact that the walls oftener cut off these 

 points than accommodate themselves to them. It is not improbable, notAvith- 

 standing the absence of direct evidence to that effect, that bastions of wood were 

 erected at intervals along the Avails. Such constructions Avould undeniably be the 

 most simple and efficient for tiie purposes desired. The numerous openings in the 

 walls of many of these works, although indiscriminately denominated gateAvays, 

 were clearly not always designed as such. It is not unwarrantable to suppose that 

 they mark the positions of Avooden constructions, like the block-houses of later times, 



