OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 27
more numerous. A few of this description of remains have been discovered which are octagonal. One of large size, in the vicinity of Chillicothe, has the alternate angles coin- cident with each other, and the sides equal.
Another description of works, probably akin to those here described, are the parallels, consisting of light embank- ments, seven or eight hundred feet in length and sixty or eighty apart.
Indeed, so various are these works, and so numerous their combinations, that it is impossible to convey any accurate conception of them, without entering into a mi- nuteness of detail and an extent of illustration utterly beyond the limits of this paper. They are invested with singular interest, alike from their peculiar form and the character and contents of the mounds which they enclose. If we are right in the assumption that they are of sacred origin, and were the temples and consecrated grounds of the ancient people, we can, from their number and extent, form some estimate of the devotional fervor or superstitious zeal which induced their erection, and the predominance of the religious sentiment among their builders.
The magnitude of some of these structures is, perhaps, the strongest objection that can be urged against the posi- tion here assigned them. It is difficult to comprehend the existence of religious works, extending, with their attend- ant avenues, like those near Newark in Ohio, over an area of little less than four square miles! We can find their parallels only in the great temples of Abury and Stone- henge in England, and Carnac in Brittany, and associate them with a mysterious worship of the Sun, or an equally mysterious Sabianism. Within the mounds enclosed in many of these sacred works, we find the altars upon which glowed their sacrificial fires, and where the ancient people offered their propitiations to the strange gods of their primi- tive superstition. These altars also furnish us with the too unequivocal evidence that the ritual of the mound-
