MORGAN] HOUSES OF MOUND-BUILDERS. 207 
open court, the fourth side being protected by a low stone wall. Such were 
the pueblos now in ruins upon the Rio Chaco in New Mexico 
In the highest form of this architecture in Yucatan and Chiapas, the 
pyramidal elevation ‘appears faced with dry stone walls. The buildings 
upon its summit were often in the form of a quadrangle, with an open 
court in the center; but the buildings were generally disconnected at the 
four angles, as in the House of the Nuns at Uxmal. All of these forms are 
parts of one system of indigenous architecture; and the several parts are 
susceptible of articulation. in a series representing a progressive develop- 
ment of a common thought, that of joint residence, with the practice of 
communism in living in large groups in the same house, or in one group 
consisting of the entire household. 
Let us, then, inquire whether the principal embankments of the Mound- 
Builders were adapted, as raised platforms of earth, for the sites of long 
houses constructed on the communistic principle, and in the general style 
of the houses of the American aborigines. 
In the valley of the Scioto, in Ohio, and within an extent of twelve 
miles, were found the remains of seven villages of the Mound-Builders, 
four upon the east and three upon the west side of the river. They are 
among the best of their works, and furnish fair examples of the whole. 
One of the number, the High Bank Pueblo, is shown in ground-plan in the 
engraving, Fig. 46 It is the only one in which the inclosure is octagonal 
instead of square. The remains of each of the seven consist principally of 
embankments like railway grades several feet high and correspondingly 
broad at the base, inclosing a square or slightly irregular area, the embank- 
o, with an 
ment on each of the four sides being about a thousand feet long, 
opening or gateway in the middle and at the four angles of the square. 
Attached to or quite near to five of the seven are large circular inclosures, 
each formed by a similar though lower embankment of earth and inclosing 
a space somewhat larger than the squares. The respective heights of the 
embankments, forming four of the rectangles, axe given at four, six, ten, 
and twelve feet; and of three of the circular embankments, at five and six 
feet, respectively. 
The embankments inclosing the squares were probably the sites of their 
