are observable at various points around these works. Near the great mound are several of considerable size. Those indicated by m and n in the plan have been regarded and described as wells. Their regularity and former depth are the only reasons adduced in support of this belief. The circumstance of regularity is not at all remarkable, and is a common feature in excavations manifestly made for the purpose of procuring material for the construction of mounds, etc. Their present depth is small, though it is represented to have been formerly much greater. There is some reason for believing that they were dug in order to procure clay for the construction of pottery and other purposes, inasmuch as a very fine variety of that material occurs at this point, some distance below the surface. The surface soil has recently been removed, and the manufacture of bricks commenced. The 'clay lining' which has been mentioned as characterizing these 'wells,' is easily accounted for, by the fact that they are sunk in a clay bank. 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.

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 numbers 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 be here 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 to effect. The elevated squares were never designed for military purposes, their very regularity of structure forbids this 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 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.

* * *

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 There are also 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 Moundbuilders, 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."

The supplemental plan (Fig. 9) is of very great importance on account of the relative proportions of the works. The section. marked z h gives the Via Sacra, and i u the conical mound with accompanying wall.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS.

As heretofore remarked all books published since that by Squier & Davis, and which treat of the Marietta antiquities, are largely indebted to "Ancient Monuments." Some of these. later publications are of value, while others use the descriptions to bolster up a theory. It is not the object here to give an

*In my paper on Blennerhassett's Island (Smithsonian Report for 1882, p. 767), I called attention to the miniature representation of the conical mound at Marietta, located on the plain of Belpre, opposite the isle, having the wall, interior ditch, and the elevated gateway leading from the mound to the gateway.

account of these more recent books, however interesting and important their contents may be.

SUMMARY.

With the mass of information now before us we learn the following:

At the junction of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers is a high sandy plain, from eighty to one hundred feet above the bed. of the river, and from forty to sixty above the bottom lands of

IX. SUPPLEMENTARY PLAN, AFTER COL. CHAS. WHITTLESEY.