SIMILARITY OF FORTIFICATIONS. 



669 



Many other exaujples niiglit hv giveu; but these will .suffice to show 

 that the Iiidiau.s were accufstomed to eoiistruct fortiflcatious similar in 

 lonu aud size to the iiiclo.sure, uow attributed to the luouudbuilders, 

 which, if burned down or allowed to decay, would in all probability 

 leave just such walls as form these inclosures. The ouly objection to 

 this explanation is the" fact that in some of the sections where the 

 Indian towns are known to have been surrounded by palisades no such 

 circular earthern walls have been discovered. This may be accounted 

 for on the supposition, which is in fact confirmed by abundant evi- 

 dence, that in some sections the walls were braced by earthen embank- 

 ments or heavily plastered with clay, while in other sections they were 

 not. The foinier would leave the earthen rings, while the latter would 



not. 



The inclosing and other 



walls of the Ohio works ixsu- 



ally have a very distinct layer 



of clay. Some of the lines of 



Fortified Hill, in Butler loun- 



ty, can now be ti'aced only 



by this layer of clay, when 



turned up by the plow, as I 



observed during a visit to it 



in 1884. 



Intimately connected with 

 this evidence, and tending 

 to strengthen the conclusion 

 arrived at, is the fact that in 

 some instances these defen- 

 sive works were surrounded 

 by ditches or canals. For ex- 

 ample, in the quotations al- 

 ready made we learn that 

 near one town "was a great 

 lake that came into the wall ; aud it entered into a ditcli that went round 

 about the town, wanting but little to environ it round ; from the lake to 

 the great river was made a weir by which fish came into it;"' that "the 

 frontier town to Casquin was fortified with a ditcli 40 fathoms wide and 

 10 in depth, full of water" ("fathoms" here is doubtless an error, and 

 shcmld be "cubits"). Biedma states that in one place they "reached 

 a village in the midst of a plain surrounded by ^\^llls and a ditch filled 

 with water, which had been made by the Indians."^ 



Although the examples given are not numerous, still they are suffi- 

 cient to show that the Indians did in some cases suiround their vil- 

 lages and fortifications with ditches and canals similar to those found 

 in several instances surrounding groups of ancient works in the South, 



Fui. :t43. — Village of Pomeioeli, from Brevis Narratio. 



1 Hist. Coll. La„ vol. 3, p. 172. 



' ri)i(l., vol.2, p. 10.'). 



