ON THE STONE AGE. 73 



Luxor : but all wrought of earth, with the simple tools made from quartzite, chert or 

 horustoue, derived from quarries aud flint-pits, such as those of Flint Ridge, the localities 

 of which have been identified. 



For a time the tendency among American archaeologists was to exaggerate the 

 antiquity of those works, and to over-estimate the artistic skill of their builders. But it 

 now appears that some vague memories of the race have been perpetuated. The traditions 

 of the Delawares preserved the remembrance of the Talligew or Tallegewi, a powerful 

 nation whose western borders extended to the Mississippi, OA'er whom they, in conjunction 

 with the fierce warrior race of Wyandots or Iroquois, triumphed. The old name of the 

 Mound-Builders is believed to survive, in modified form, in that of the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains and River ; aud the Chatta Muskogee tribes, including the Choctaws, Chickosaws, 

 the Natchez, and other southern Indians of the same stock, are supposed to represent the 

 ancient race. The Natchez claimed that, in their more prosperous days, they had five 

 hundred villages, and their borders extended to the Ohio. With such assignment of an 

 affinity to known Indian nations, the vague idea of some strange prehistoric American 

 race of unknown antiquity vanishes ; and the latter tendency has been rather to under- 

 estimate their distinctive peculiarities. Some of these seem to separate them from any 

 Indian tribe of which definite accounts have been preserved. Special features significant 

 of such difference are worthy of note ; and foremost among these is the evidence of com- 

 prehensive design, aud of scientific skill in the construction of their sacred enclosures. 

 The predominant impression suggested by the great military earthworks of the Mound- 

 Builders is that of a peoj^le cooperating iiuder the guidance of approved leaders, with a 

 view to the defence of large communities. Elaborate fortifications are erected on well- 

 chosen hills or bluffs, and strengthened by ditches, mou.nds, and complicated approaches ; 

 but the lines of earthwork are everywhere adapted to the natural features of the site. 

 The sacred enclosures are, on the contrary, constructed on the level river-terraces with 

 elaborate artificiality of design, but on a scale of magnitude not less imposing than that 

 of the largest hill-forts. On first entering the great circle at Newark, and looking across 

 its broad trench at the lofty embankment overshadowed with full-grown forest trees, my 

 thoughts reverted to the Antoniue vallum, which by like evidence still records the pre- 

 sence of the Roman masters of the world in North Britain sixteen hundred years ago. 

 But after driving over a circuit of several miles, embracing the remarkable earthworks of 

 which that is only a single feature ; and satisfying myself by personal observation of the 

 existence of parallel avenues which have been traced for nearly two miles ; aud of the 

 grand oval, circles, and octagon, the smallest of which measures upwards of half-a-mile 

 in circumference : all idea of mere combined labour is lost in the higher conviction of 

 manifest skill, and even science. The octagon indeed is not a perfect figure. Its angles 

 are not coincident, but the sides are very nearly equal ; and the enclosure approaches so 

 closely to an accurate figure that its error is only demonstrated by actual survey. Con- 

 nected with it by parallel embankments 350 feet long, is a true circle, measuring 2,880 

 feet in circumference ; and distant nearly a mile from this, but connected with it by an 

 elaborate series of earthworks, is the great circular structure previously referred to. Its 

 actual form is an ellipse ; the different diameters of which are 1,250 feet and 1,150 feet, 

 respectively ; and it encloses an area of upwards of thirty acres. At the entrance, the 

 enclosing embankment curves oiitward on either side for a distance of 100 feet, leaving a 



Sec. II,_1889. 10. 



