The forest has been removed. Not a tree remains on the quadrangle, and only a few on the edge of the ravine on the west. By cultivating the land, the trench is nearly filled in some places, though the line of it is clearly seen. On the north side the trench is considerable, and where the road crosses it, is three or four feet deep at the sides of the road. It will take only a few years more to obliterate it entirely, as not even a stump remains to mark out its line.
From this view it may be seen or inferred,
1. That a real trench bounded three sides of the quadrangle. On the south side there was not found any trace of trench, palisadoes, blocks, &c.
2. It was formed long before the whites came into the country. The large trees on the ground and in the trench, carry us back to an early era.
3. The workers must have had some convenient tools for excavation.
4. The direction of the sides may have had some reference to the four cardinal points, though the situation of the ravines naturally marked out the lines.
5. It cannot have been designed merely to catch wild animals to be driven into it from the south. The oblique cut down to the spring is opposed to this supposition, as well as the insufficiency of such a trench to confine the animals of the forest.
6. The same reasons render it improbable that the quadrangle was designed to confine and protect domestic animals.
7. It was probably a sort of fortified place. There might have been a defence on the south by a stockade or some similar means, which might have entirely disappeared.
By what people was this work done?