One writer has stated that America has no hoary legends or traditions that lend an ever-increasing interest to the scenes of other lands. It will never have any ancient history, nor any old institutions. This writer surely never stood on those ancient mounds of Ohio and elsewhere which tell us that there were people here ten thousand years ago, when the glaciers began to melt and the land became inhabitable once more. "Even before the ice came creeping southwestwardly from the region of Niagara and passed over two-thirds of our state, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River there were people here of an older race than the hills, as the hills now are; for the glaciers ground away the hills as they once were and made new ones, with new valleys between them, and new channels for the streams to run where there had never been water courses before. The earliest Ohioans must have been the same as the Ohioans of the Ice Age, and when they fled southward before the glaciers they mast have followed the retreat of the melting ice, back into Ohio again. No one knows how long they dwelt here along its edges in a climate like that of Greenland, where the glaciers are now to be seen as they once were in the region of Cincinnati. But it is believed that these Ice Folk, as we may call them, were of the race which still roams the Arctic snows.
"All they have left to prove that they were able to cope with the fierce brute life and terrible climate of their day are axes of chipped stone and similar tools and weapons dropped on the gravelly banks of new rivers which the glaciers upheaved. Such an ax was dug up out of the glacier terrace, as the bank of this drift is called, in the valley of the Tuscarawas in Mississippi.
"For the next four or five thousand years the early Ohio men kept very quiet; but we need not suppose for that reason that there were none. Our Ice Folk who dropped their stone axes in the river banks may have passed away with the Ice Age, or they may have remained in Ohio, and begun slowly to take on some faint likeness of civilization. There is nothing to prove that they stayed; but Ohio must always have been a pleasant place to live in after the great thaw, and it seems reasonable that the Ice Folk lingered, in part at least, and changed with the changing climate, and became at last the people who left the signs of their presence in almost every part of the state." (footnote Howell's History of Ohio.)
The great masterpiece of the Mound Builders is known as Fort Ancient. Its colossal size, ingenuity in design and perfection in construction give it first rack in interest among all prehistoric fortifications, and it represents the highest point attained by this lost race in their earth-work structures. Why make a journey to Europe to see the old forts when we have in Ohio one so old we have no record of its building? Truly we were more impressed while rambling over this old fort than we were when we entered the passages that led through Douamont and Verdian or stood on the ramparts of Mighty Ehrenbreitstein and gazed at the wonderful panorama spread out before us.
The works of these ancient people are said to be two or three thousand years old. Some seem to think they were a race of red men like those the whites found here. Only an agricultural people who were settled in their habits could have produced such wonderful works as we find scattered about the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. It is stated that every Indian requires fifty thousand acres to live upon. If this be true this country in which we find these vast mounds could not have provided food enough for the vast number of laborers required for such stupendous works. It is estimated that the white men found only two or three thousand Indians in the whole Ohio Valley.
We find forts that were skilfully planned, showing a knowledge far superior to that of the savage race. Some of them contained hundreds of acres which were enclosed with high walls of earth rising to ten or twelve feet from the ground. The largest and most interesting ruins we find in Warren county, "where on a level terrace above the Little Miami river, five miles of wall, which can still be easily traced, shut in a hundred acres." This was not only a fort but was probably used as a village site, and has some features about it which are regarded as of a religious nature. The hill on which it stands is in most cases very steep towards the river. A ravine starts from near the upper end on the eastern side, gradually deepening towards the south, and finally turns abruptly towards the west of the river. By this means nearly the whole work occupies the summit of a detached hill, having in most places very steep sides. To this naturally strong position fortifications were added, consisting of an embankment of earth of unusual height, which follows close around the very brow of the hill. This embankment is still in a very fine state of preservation, and is now, thanks to the State of Ohio, no longer exposed to cultivation and other inroads so that it will not be marred by domestic animals and will be preserved for future generations.
"This wall is, of course, the highest in just those places where the sides of the hill are less steep than usual. In some places it still has a height of twenty feet. For most of the distance the grading of the walls resembles the heavy grading of a railway embankment. Only one who has examined the walls can realize the amount of labor they represent for a people destitute of metallic tools, beasts of burden, and other facilities to construct it. We notice that the wall has numerous breaks in it; some of these, where it crossed the ravines, leading down the sides of a hill. In a few cases the embankment may still be traced to within a few feet of a rivulet."
Considerable discussion has ensued as to the origin and use of these numerous gateways. Mr. Squier thinks that these openings were occupied by timber work in the nature of block-houses, which have long since decayed. Others, however, think that the wall was originally entire except in a few instances, and that the breaks now apparent were formed by natural causes, such as water gathering in pools, and muskrats burrowing through the walls, and we are told that such an opening was seen forming in the year 1847. No regular ditch exists inside the wall, the material apparently being obtained from numerous dug holes.
"It will be seen that the works could be naturally divided into two parts, connected by the isthmus. In relation to the wall across the isthmus it has been thought to have been the means of defending one part of the work, should an enemy gain entrance to the other. It has also been supposed that at first the fort was only built to the cross wall on the isthmus, and afterward the rest of the inclosure was added to the work."
The late Dr. Edward Orton, president (1898) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and one of the foremost scientists this country has produced, gave an address before the Ohio State Legislature (March, 1898) upon Fort Ancient in which he said: