perstitions of the people.

Illustration of Square inscribed in a Circle.--------

A peculiar feature is also noticed in reference to some of the smaller
circles in this section. The cut below illustrates it. The circle has a
ditch interior to the embankment, and also a broad embankment of about
the same height with the outer wall, interior to the ditch, running
about half-way around the circle. A short distance from the circle was
one of those elevated squares, one hundred and twenty feet square at
the base, and nine feet high.<66> It may be that this square was the
foundation on which stood a temple, in which case the circle might have
been dedicated to religious purposes also.

Illustration of Circle and Ditch.------------

The great geometrical inclosures are especially numerous in the Scioto
Valley. All the works we have described were in the near neighborhood
of Chillicothe, and works as important as these are scattered all up and
down the valley. We must also recall how well provided this valley was
with signal mounds. All indications point to the fact that here was the
location of a numerous people, ready to defend their homes whenever the
warning fires were lit. Although Mound Builders' works are numerous
in the valley of the two Miami Rivers, Cincinnati being the site of an
extensive settlement, yet they were not such massive structures as those
in the Scioto. This would seem to indicate that these valleys were the
seats of separate tribes.<67> But this Eastern tribe must have occupied
an extensive territory, since works of the most complicated kind are
found at Newark.

All indications point to the fact that near this latter place was a
very important settlement of the Mound Builders. Several fortified works
exist a few miles up the valley; signal-mounds are to be seen on all
heights, commanding a wide view, and the famous alligator mound is
placed, as if with the design of guarding the entrance to the valley. No
verbal description will give an idea of the works, so we refer at once
to the plan. This will give us a good idea of the works as they were
when the first white settlers gazed upon them. They have nearly all been
swept away by modern improvements, excepting the two circular works and
the octagon. Here and there fragments of the other works can still be
traced.

Illustration of Mound Builders' Works, Newark, Ohio.-------

Two forks of the Licking River unite near Newark; the bottom