90 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
a great plaza or public square, about 1,000 feet in length 
and 500 feet in breadth, had been formed. Upon the sides. 
of this level plaza one very large mound and two smaller 
ones had been erected. This section of the ancient town 
was protected on the water side by the perpendicular cliffs 
of the Harpeth River. On the land side it was defended 
by an earthen embankment or breastworks surmounted 
by a wooden wall, from which at intervals semicircular 
wooden towers projected. These earthen breastworks, which 
had formerly supported this wooden wall, were still to be 
found in the undisturbed woodlands, where they yet extend 
about 114 miles, and there is evidence that they originally 
ran much farther. Wooden palisades, consisting of small 
tree trunks, had been driven into the ground side by side 
and wedged together and the soil thrown against them 
until they were by this means firmly embedded in these 
earthen embankments or breastworks. ‘These palisades, 
bound closely together and strongly braced, formed a wooden 
wall which had been plastered on the outside in order to 
make scaling by an enemy difficult. Earthen bastions 
projecting beyond this line of wall at intervals of about 150 
yards were still to be found. These had formerly supported 
the semicircular wooden towers. The enemy advancing 
to attack was therefore subjected to fire from the defenders 
through portholes along the main wall and also to a flanking 
fire from the warriors in the towers on these bastions. Faint 
traces of some of the timbers of these palisades and wooden 
towers were found in the soil of these embankments. 
While the great central mound and terraced hill formed 
the most striking feature of this ancient town, there were 
in the inclosure four other eminences whose summits had 
likewise been leveled into plazas. All these plazas yielded 
traces of earth lodges and other evidences of former build- 
ings. The earth lodges of the common people were situated 
on the edges of the terraces. The larger mounds had prob- 
ably supported important public buildings and the lodges 
of leading personages. This grouping of important buildings 
around five separate plazas and in different parts of the 
town very probably indicates that the population was made 
