OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 21
origin. A fortified hill in the vicinity of Chillicothe em- braces one hundred and forty acres within its walls; and another military work—most probably a fortified village— on the banks of the North Fork of Paint Creek, five miles from Chillicothe, has an area of one hundred and twenty- sevenacres. To appreciate fully the judgment displayed in the choice of position, and the skill exhibited in defence, a minute examination of a series of these structures is necessary. No one can rise from such an examination without being convinced that the race by whom they were erected possessed no inconsiderable knowledge of the sci- ence of defence—a degree of knowledge much superior to that known to have been possessed by the North American tribes previous to the discovery by Columbus, or indeed, subsequent to that event. Their number and magnitude must also impress the inquirer with enlarged notions of the power of the people commanding the means for their con- struction, and whose numbers required such extensive works for their protection. It is not impossible that they were, to acertain extent, designed to embrace cultivated fields, so as to furnish the means of sustenance to their defenders in event of a protracted siege. There is no other founda- tion, however, for this suggestion than that furnished by the size of some of these defensive enclosures. The population finding shelter within their walls must have been exceedingly large, if their dimensions may be taken as the basis of a calculation.
The vast amount of labor necessary to the erection of most of these works precludes the notion that they were hastily constructed to check a single or unexpected inva- sion. On the contrary there seems to have existed a sys- tem of defences, extending from the sources of the Allegha- ny in New-York diagonally across the country, through central Ohio to the Wabash. Within this range, those works which are regarded as defensive are largest and most numerous. If an inference may be drawn from this
