18 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



coil at the end than a saurian's tail is capable of assuming. The figure 

 is evidently intended for an opossum— an animal much better known 

 than an alligator to the aborigines of Ohio. 



The small figure near the center of the large circle at Newark (Plate 

 V) is generally considered an effigy; but it has not yet been agreed 

 whether it represents a prostrate man with extended arms, a flying eagle, 

 a bended bow with an arrow across it, or a bird's foot. A similar, but 

 smaller mound is near the "Graded Way" at Piketon. 



On the right bank of the Scioto, six miles from Portsmouth, in an 

 enclosure, is an irregular mound supposed to be intended for an effigy, 

 which has been compared to a tapir ; it resembles that animal about as 

 much — and as little —as it does any other. 



(g) MOUNDS. 



The great majority of mounds in Ohio are composed entirely of 

 earth, though many are altogether of stone and occasionally one occurs 

 in which both materials are used. 



As a rule the earth mounds resemble in shape a medium between a 

 low cone, and a flat dome or segment of a sphere. Some have an ellip- 

 tical outline; others are flat-topped. All these usually come under the 

 designation of " conical mounds, " which is, perhaps, as accurate as any 

 single descriptive word could be, though none are, or ever have been, 

 exactly conical; a mound could not be built in that form, nor, if it could, 

 would it retain such shape after the first storm. A few are truncated 

 pyramids, the base always four-sided, sometimes almost a rectangle. As 

 , it was a rather common practice for southern Indians to use structures 

 similar to the last as sites for buildings, it has been supposed the ones 

 found here were utilized in the same way. While this may have been 

 the case with those standing on low or level ground, in connection with 

 additional evidences of occupation, as at Marietta and in two or three 

 other localities, there are some whose situation is contrary to such a sup- 

 position. For example, a mile south of the stone fort in Perry county, is 

 a mound of this character about eighteen feet high and covering nearly 

 two acres. It is on top of a hill which slopes away in every direction. 

 The soil in the vicinity is poor, the surface is a succession of hills and 

 ravines, and it is not credible that an aboriginal settlement would have 

 been located amid such surroundings. 



The sparseness of such mounds and their occurrence under the same 

 conditions as the commoner forms, are inconsistent with the idea which 

 has been advanced that they owe their origin to a different people or 

 belong to a different age; their erection is undoubtedly due to the same 

 motives which induced the building of nearly all the others. Only two 



