Upon the opposite side of the Muskingum river are bold, precipitous bluffs, several hundred feet in height. Along their brows are a number of small stone mounds. They command an extensive view, and overlook the entire plain upon which the works here described are situated.[61]
Such are the principal facts connected with these interesting remains. The generally received opinion respecting them is, that they were erected for defensive purposes. Such was the belief of the late President HARRISON, who visited them in person, and whose opinion, in matters of this kind, is entitled to great weight. The reasons for this belief have never been presented, and they are not very obvious. The number and width of the gateways, the absence of a fosse, as well as the character of the enclosed and accompanying remains, present strong objections to the hypothesis which ascribes to them a warlike origin. And it may here be remarked, that the conjecture that the Muskingum ran at the base of the graded way already described, at the period of its erection, seems to have had its origin in the assumption of a military design in the entire group. Under this hypothesis, it was supposed that the way was designed to cover or secure access to the river,—an object which it would certainly not have required the construction of a passage-way one hundred and fifty feet wide to effect. The elevated squares were never designed for military purposes,—their very regularity of structure forbids the conclusion. They were most likely erected as the sites for structures which have long since passed away, or for the celebration of unknown rites,—corresponding in short, in purpose as they do in form, with those which they so much resemble in p077 Mexico and Central America. Do not these enclosed structures give us the clue to the purposes of the works with which they are connected? As heretofore remarked, the sacred grounds of almost every people are set apart or designated by enclosures of some kind.
Fig. 18.
The absolute identity in size between the smaller enclosure, (which varies a little from a true square,) and several of those which occur in the Scioto valley, should not be overlooked, in any attempt to educe the character and design of the group. That there is some significance in the fact is obvious. (See Plates [XVI] and [XVII].) There are no other works in the immediate vicinity of Marietta. At Parkersburgh, Virginia, on the Ohio, twelve miles below, there is an enclosure of irregular form and considerable extent, a miniature plan of which, from the MSS. of Prof. Rafinesque, is herewith presented, Fig. 18. There are also some works at Belpre, opposite Parkersburgh.
The valley of the Muskingum is for the most part narrow, affording few of those broad, level, and fertile terraces, which appear to have been the especial favorites of the race of mound-builders, and upon which most of their monuments are found. As a consequence, we find few remains of magnitude in that valley, until it assumes a different aspect, in the vicinity of Zanesville, ninety miles from its mouth, where the interesting remains figured in the preceding Plate are situated.
![[♠]](#2494257972018181321_i076e.jpg.id-8132341243990057796.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
XXVII. Portsmouth Works, at the mouth of the Scioto river.