[♠] XI. Ancient Work, Butler Co. Ohio.

Such are some of the features of this interesting work; and if their detail has been tedious, it may be urged in extenuation of such minuteness, that descriptions have hitherto been quite too vague and general. Minute circumstances are often of the first importance in arriving at correct conclusions. The comparative slightness of the wall and the absence of a ditch, at the points possessing natural defences,—the extension of the artificial defences upon the table lands overlooking and commanding the terrace,—the facilities afforded for an abundant supply of water, as well as the large area enclosed, with its mysterious circles and sacred p029 mounds,—all go to sustain the conclusion, that this was a fortified town or city of the ancient people. The history of its fall, if its strange monuments could speak, would perhaps tell of heroic defence of homes and altars, and of daring achievements in siege and assault.

The amount of labor expended in the construction of this work, in view of the imperfect means at the command of the builders, is immense. The embankments measure together nearly three miles in length; and a careful computation shows that, including mounds, not less than three millions cubic feet of earth were used in their composition.

Within this work, some of the most interesting discoveries recorded in this volume were made.

PLATE XI. No. 1. [From the Surveys and Notes of JAMES MCBRIDE.]

This highly interesting work is situated in Butler county, Ohio, on the banks of Seven Mile creek, five miles north of the town of Hamilton. It is formed by two irregular lines of embankment, and an exterior ditch, cutting off a jutting point of the second terrace; and has an area of twenty-five acres. These embankments are parallel throughout, and were evidently both made from the same ditch. The outer one has an average height of four, the inner one of three feet. The ditch is between five and six feet deep, by thirty-five feet wide. At the southern portion of the work, both walls and the ditch have their greatest dimensions. The side of the work next the stream is bounded by an abrupt natural bank, eighteen feet high. Distant a few rods from the north-eastern angle of the work, is an elliptical mound eleven feet high; its conjugate and transverse diameters are ninety-two and one hundred and eighteen feet respectively.

This work has a single gateway thirty feet wide. The inner wall, near its southern extremity, curves inward along the terrace-bank for a considerable distance. The first, or creek terrace, is a low alluvion, not subject to overflow. It is evident, however, that the creek once ran at the base of the natural bank (now bounding one side of this work), probably at the period of its construction and occupancy.

PLATE XI. No. 2.

This work affords a very fair illustration of one portion of the defensive structures of the West, already alluded to in the general remarks on the subject, at the p030 beginning of this chapter. It occurs in Oxford township, Butler county, Ohio (Lot 6, Sec. 31, Tp. 5, Range 2, E. M.), at a point on Four Mile creek, where that stream forms a remarkable bend, constituting a peninsula one thousand and sixty feet across at its neck, and one thousand three hundred and twenty feet deep. This peninsula is, in fact, a bold head-land, with precipitous banks, rising sixty feet above the water in the creek, and overlooking the low bottoms that surround it. Across the neck of this peninsula is carried a crescent-shaped wall with an outer ditch. The wall is now but little over three feet in height, and the ditch of corresponding depth. Formerly it was much higher, precluding cultivation. It has been reduced by the present occupant, who has ploughed along it longitudinally, throwing the furrows into the ditch,—a common practice, which is fast reducing and obliterating these interesting monuments of antiquity. A single gateway twenty feet wide leads into the enclosure, which has an area of twenty acres. A terrace, apparently artificial, and thirty feet wide, occurs on the northern bank, at about midway from the water to the top. It may be a natural feature, and caused by the subsidence of the bank from the undermining of the stream. The creek, at one time, unquestionably ran close under the banks of the peninsula; whether or not the recession, leaving the intervening low bottom, B, took place subsequently to the erection of the work, it is of course impossible to determine.

In this work will be remarked the lapping round of the parapet, on the natural bank of the stream at b,—a feature heretofore mentioned, as probably designed to protect the flank of the defence.