Travel Guide to the Newark, Ohio Adena Hopewell Burial Mounds and Earthworks

The Ohio Historical Society would like you to believe that the only earthworks in Newark, Ohio are the famous Octagon and Henge, but there are numerous burial mounds within the city. There are two sites that I have not posted, and those are the Roberts Mound and the Yost Works that are a little south of I-70.

Avebury, England, and Portsmouth, Ohio Sister Earthworks

The similarities between the Avebury Serpentine work and Portsmouth are striking. Grand avenues that are draped over a solar symbol representing the rejuvenation of the solar deity. 

  In Wiltshire, England, are prehistoric remains of great extent supposed to be the work of the Druids. The so-called " Temple of Abury consisted originally of a grand circumvallation of earth 1,250 feet in diameter, enclosing an area of upwards of twenty-two acres.  It has an inner ditch, and the height of the embankment, measuring from the bottom of the ditch, is seventeen feet. It is quite regular, though not an exact circle in form, and has four entrances placed at unequal distances apart, though nearly at right angles to each other. Within this grand circle were originally two double or concentric circles, composed of massive upright stones; a row of large stones, one hundred in number, were placed upon the inner brow of the ditch. Extending upon either hand from this grand central structure, where parallel lines of huge upright stones, constituting upon each side, avenues upwards of a mile in length. These formed the body of the serpent. Each avenue consisted of two hundred stones. The head of the serpent was represented by an oval structure, consisting of two concentric lines of upright stones; the outer line containing forty, the inner eighteen stones. This head rests on an eminence * * * from which is commanded a view of the entire structure, winding back for more than two miles to the point of the tail. * * * About midway, in a right line between the extremities of the avenues, is placed a huge mound of earth, known as Silsbury Hill, [which] is supposed by some, Dr. Stukely among the number, to be a monumental structure erected over the bones of a King or Arch-Druid." — Squier, 234. " The circumference of the [above] hill, as near the base as possible, measured two thousand and twenty-seven feet, the diameter at the top one hundred and twenty feet, the sloping height three hundred and sixteen feet, and the perpendicular height one hundred and seventy feet." It contains over 13,500.000 cubic feet. — Hoare, Is there a connection between the Avebury works and those if the Ohio Valley. A Nephilim giant queen is discovered in Ohio  https://www.mysteriesofancientamerica.com/2020/07/ancient-giantess-nephilim-queen-of.html

Did England's Beaker People Migrate to the Ohio Valley? Evidence is Here!

Adena Skeletons Discovered in Cayuga County, Ohio

DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT SKELETONS.
    Interesting Examination of a Burial Mound in Chagrin Falls. - Two gentlemen by the names of Graham and Bray, engaged in the work of excavating a mound near Chagrin Falls, early this spring. They found twelve skeletons, all in an advanced state of decay, so much so, in fact, that but few pieces of bone remain intact. Four skeletons were found in the first tier, and these were buried apparently before the mound was built, in graves deep enough to hold the body. The soil is a yellow clay, and as the mound is of black loam these lower graves were easily traced. Two of these were undoubtedly the last resting-place of chiefs, or rulers, as they were covered with flat stones, while the others were not, and in each was found several badges and flat implements. Each of these graves contained a curious badge of striped slate, somewhat in the shape of a shield, and pierced with two holes near the middle; they also each contained a long flat badge of slate, also pierced with holes, and a quantity of red paint which is well preserved, and somewhat resembles red lead. The heads of the two skeletons were raised so that they formed nearly a right angle with the bodies. Over the surface was spread about eighteen inches of soil, in which were found eight skeletons, and over this was a tier of flat brook stone covering the whole area. Originally another tier of flat stone was spread over above this, with a layer of earth between, but they came so near the surface as to interfere with the plow and were removed, and doubtless several skeletons were also broken up, as fragments of bone were found in the debris above the upper layer of stone.

Aerial Photo of the Giant's Henge In Chillicothe, Ohio

Situated on the North Fork of Paint Creek this Giant's Henge is one of the best-preserved in Ohio. Its size is likely 210 feet in diameter the same size as another group called the Junction Works located less than a mile to the south. To see an additional 121 burial mound and earthwork sites in Ohio https://adenahopewellmoundbuildersohiovalley.blogspot.com/2020/07/121-indian-burial-mounds-photographed.html

Click the book to Discover all of Ancient Ohio

 “Golgothas” of the Mandans: Legacy of the Hopewell Mound Builders

With evidence that the Mandan were in the Ohio Valley burying there dead in mounds, the Golgothas give valuable insight into Ohio Hopewell.

“Golgothas” of the Mandans: Legacy of the Ohio Mound Builders

   There are several of these golgothas, or circles of twenty or thirty feet in diameter, and in the center of each ring or circle is a little mound of three feet high, on which uniformly rest two buffalo skulls (a male and female), and in the center of the little mound is erected “a medicine pole,” of about twenty feet high, supporting many curious articles of mystery and superstition, which they supposedly have the power of guarding and protecting this sacred arrangement.

   Here, then, to this strange place do these people again resort to evince their further affections for the dead, not in groans and lamentations, however, for several years have cured the anguish, but fond affection and endearments are here renewed, and conversations are here held and cherished with the dead. Each one of these skulls is placed upon a bunch of wild sage, which has been pulled and placed under it. The wife knows, by some mark or resemblance, the skull of her husband or her child which lies in this group, and they're seldom passes a day that she does not visit it with a dish of the best-cooked food that her wigwam affords, which she sets before the skull at night, and returns for the dish in the morning. As soon as it is discovered that the sage on which the skull rests is beginning to decay, the woman cuts a fresh bunch and places the skull carefully upon it, removing that which was under it.
   Independent of the above-named duties, which draw the women to this spot, they visit it from inclination and linger upon it to hold converse and company with the dead. There is scarcely an hour in a pleasant day but more or less of these women may be seen sitting or lying by the skull of their child or husband, talking to it in the most pleasant and endearing language that they can use (as they were wont to do in former days), and seemingly getting an answer back.

Hopewell Sioux Seip Earthworks and Burial Mounds

Hopewell Sioux Seip Earthworks and Burial Mounds

Seip mound was mowed by the OHS showing the dimensions of the earthworks that surrounded two large Hopewell Sioux burial mounds in the interior.  UFOs spotted over the Seip mound here  www.nephilimgiants.net : Triangular UFO Sighted Over the Seip Geometric Earthwork and Mounds in Ohio

Get Direction to over 100 burial mound and earthwork sites in Ohio.  222 sites in IN, WV, KY and MI

Colorized Print of the Marietta, Ohio Earthworks

Colorized Print of the Marietta, Ohio Earthworks

I colorized this print that was taken from an 1832 painting of the Marietta, Ohio Adena Hopewell platform mounds.

Get Directions, Photos and Histories of Hundreds of Sites in Ohio

Ancient Stone Work Near Jacksontown, Ohio (Licking County)

Ancient Stone Work Near Jacksontown, Ohio (Licking County) 

    

     This work is situated eighty rods north of the National Road, and two miles east of Jacksontown, Licking County, Ohio. The ground here is elevated, the enclosure surrounding the summit of a hill, not very abrupt; the soil is a mass of broken sand-rock. From the top of the inner wall, e, in the section a b, to the bottom of the ditch between the walls, the distance is three feet, generally less; both the height of the wall and depth of the ditch, varying at different points. Of the entrances, c, c, c, the northern is the widest, being forty feet; the eastern twenty-eight, and the other twenty-two feet, and without mounds or barriers. The circles at figures 1, 2, 3, 4, represent mounds of stones, such as one, or at most, two men might carry, loosely thrown together. No. 1 was eighteen feet high, with a base of ninety feet diameter. No. 2, fifteen feet height and seventy feet base. No. 3, the same. Their bases are not regular circles, and all of them are now (May, 1838) much injured by the inhabitants of Jacksontown, who use the stone for cellar walls. This consists of the coarse-grained sandstone of the coal series, and constitutes an excellent material for rough walls. I did not observe any permanent supply of water in the neighborhood, or any reservoirs within the enclosures, which might otherwise be regarded as defensive work. The largest diameter is seven hundred and fifty feet; the shorter six hundred. The interior space rises above the well and ditch several feet, in an oval or rounded form. One-fourth of a mile to the north-east is another stone mound, like those within the work, which is fifteen feet high, and composed of loose sandstone.

Large Adena Burial Located South of Newark, Ohio

Large Adena Burial Located South of Newark, Ohio 

Burial mound situated on a high bluff in Perry County, Ohio looking north towards Newark, Ohio and the many mounds and earthworks.

This Adena mound is located just south of Licking County, Ohio in Perry County.  It could have been seen in the winter months from Glenford Fort.

"Address Restricted" is a thing of the past, get directions to all of Ohio's mounds and earthworks

Ross County, Ohio's Lost Nephilim Sun Temple

Ross County, Ohio's Lost Nephilim Sun Temple

Sun Temple or Henge located on the North Fork of Paint Creek in Ross County, Ohio is clearly seen in this early 1990s aerial photo.To see all of the visible burial mounds and earthworks in Ross County, Ohio

A wider view shows Paint Creek to the south where the North Fork Henge site was located.

Over 100 Adena Hopewell Burial Mound and Earthworks Photographed

Choctaw Absorbed the Ohio Mound Builders After Being Defeated by the Algonquin Indians

Choctaw Absorbed the Ohio Mound Builders After Being Defeated by the Algonquin Indians

The Algonquin peoples were of northern origin who didn't migrate into the lower Great Lakes region until after warring with the Ohio and Indiana mound builders.

    Their most constant and most dreaded enemies were the tribes of the Algonquin family, a fierce and restless people, of northern origin, who everywhere surrounded them. At one period, however, if the concurrent traditions of both Iroquois and Algonquins can be believed, these contending races for a time stayed their strife, and united their forces in an alliance against a common and formidable foe. This foe was the nation, or perhaps the confederacy, of the Alligewi or Talligewi, the semi-civilized "Mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley, who have left their name to the Allegheny river and mountains, and whose vast earthworks are still, after half-a-century of study, the perplexity of archaeologists. A desperate warfare ensued, which lasted about a hundred years, and ended in the complete overthrow and destruction, or expulsion, of the Alligewi. The survivors of the conquered people fled southward, and are supposed to have mingled with the tribes which occupied the region extending from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the Tennessee river and the southern spurs of the Alleghenies. Among these tribes, the Choctaws retained, to recent times, the custom of raising huge mounds of earth for religious purposes and for the sites of their habitations, a custom which they perhaps learned from the Alligewi; and the Cherokees are supposed by some to have preserved in their name (Tsalaki) and in their language indications of an origin derived in part from the same people. Their language, which shows, in its grammar and many of its words, clear evidence of affinity with the Iroquois, has drawn the greater portion of its vocabulary from some foreign source. This source is conjectured to have been the speech of the Alligewi. As the Cherokee tongue is evidently a mixed language, it is reasonable to suppose that the Cherokees are a mixed people, and probably, like the English, an amalgamation of conquering and conquered races. [Footnote: This question has been discussed by the writer in a paper on "Indian Migrations as evidenced by Language," read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at their Montreal Meeting, in August, 1882, and published in the American Antiquarian for January and April, 1883.]

The time which has elapsed since the overthrow of the Alligewi is variously estimated. The most probable conjecture places it at a period about a thousand years before the present day. It was apparently soon after their expulsion that the tribes of the Huron-Iroquois and the Algonquin stocks scattered themselves over the wide region south of the Great Lakes, thus left open to their occupancy.

A Travel Tour of the Adena Hopewell Mounds in Highland, Ross, Highland Adams and Scioto Counties of Ohio.

A Travel Tour of the Adena Hopewell Mounds in Highland, Ross, Highland  Adams and Scioto Counties of Ohio.

    This tour guide map was done by the Ohio Tourism Board.  Starting in Chillicothe, the tour begins at Mound City and then the Adena Mound, but wait, there's no mound there, it was long ago completely leveled by the the Ohio Historical Society, so skip that one.  From there, lets head west to the Hopewell Mound Group, which may be the same as what I marked as the North Fork Works. Heading down 41 and a little back tacking you can see the Seip mound and down 41 to Fort Hill and the Serpent Mound. From the Serpent Mound its a pretty long drive down to the Tremper Mound, but wait, the mound has been excavated and is on private property. You can see a slight rise on a hill about a 100 yards away, that's it!  At Portsmouth only one horseshoe shaped work is left of almost 20 miles of earthwork, still pretty cool see.
   9 sites, with two where there is little or nothing to see.  If you had "Nephilim Chronicles: A Travel Guide to the Ancient Ruins," You would add 10 sites to see to this trip. Some of the mounds are the largest in Ohio. 

This burial mound is located north of Chillicothe; it is the second largest burial mound in Ohio.  Sorry, but its not part of Ohio's official tour. This is worth an extra 10 miles.

See that slight rise on that hill? That's the Tremper mound, not much to see and this is as close as you get. In the time it took to drive this far south, there were at least 5 much bigger sites you could have visited.
In the The Nephilim Chronicles: A Travel Guide to the Ancient Ruins in the Ohio Valley," every site has been photographed with historical details added, giving you more information in deciding and planning your trip.

           See and Explore All of the Mounds In Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia

Serpent Mound Discovered Within Chicago's City Limits

Serpent Mound Discovered Within Chicago's City Limits

The Serpent Mound is located in Thatcher Woods outside of Chicago, Illinois.  The Serpent is believed to have been constructed by the Winnebago Sioux Indians that were part of the Hopewell mound builders that constructed burial and effigy mounds in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

Pike County Osage Hopewell Earthwork Decoded

Pike County Osage Hopewell Earthwork Decoded

The Great Spirit of the Osage Indian Tribe was Wah-kon-tah, the great mystery spirit or power. In one of their legend of creation, the Osages believed that the People of the Sky (Tzi-sho) met with the People of the Land (Hun-Kah) to form one tribe, the Children of the Middle Waters (Ni-u-ko’n-ska).

Adena Burial Mound Near Newark, Ohio - Tippit Mound

Adena Burial Mound Near Newark, Ohio - Tippit Mound

 A little south of Newark, Ohio is the ruins of the what has been called the Tippit Adena Mound.

It is located in the Dawes Arboretum in Jacksontown. See the video of Ohio's largest Adena Hopewell burial mounds here https://youtu.be/H5NN9nNRQKg

The Tippit mound is located off of one of the hiking trails. It was excavated and only a fraction of its original size.  Another smaller mound is also located in the park.

Get Direction to 222 Mound and Earthwork Sites

About American Indian Burial Mounds And Their Builders.

About American Indian Burial Mounds And Their Builders.

In many parts of the United States, from western New York to the Rocky Mountains and even beyond, there are great numbers of artificial heaps and extensive embankments of earth. These show skill in construction, and from them have been dug many relics of artistic merit and good workmanship. At one time these earthworks and relics were generally believed to be the work of a single, highly civilized people, who preceded the Indians, who were not related to them, and who are now extinct. To this people the name “mound-builders” was given.

There are three ways in which we can learn about these so-called “mound-builders.” We may learn something from the mounds themselves, from the relics found in the mounds, and from the bones of persons who were buried in them.

Studying the mounds themselves, we find that they differ in different areas. We will look at three areas:

(1) In Ohio there are thousands of mounds and earthworks. Near every important modern town there are groups of them. Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Dayton, Xenia, are all near important mounds. 

The regular enclosures are numerous in this area: these are great embankments of earth inclosing a regular space. Some are in the form of circles; others are four-sided; in a few cases they are eight-sided. Sometimes a square and a circle are united. There is one such combination at Hopeton; one of the embankments is a nearly true circle containing twenty acres; joined to it is a square of almost the same area.

At Newark there was a wonderful group of enclosures. The group covered about two miles square and consisted of three divisions, which were connected with one another by long parallel embankment walls. One circle in this group contained more than thirty acres: the walls were twelve feet high and fifty feet wide; a ditch seven feet deep and thirty-five feet wide bordered it on the inner side; a gap of eighty feet in the circle served as an entrance. In the center of the area enclosed by this great circle was a curious earth heap somewhat like a bird in form. Northwest from this great circle, nearly a mile distant, were two connected enclosures, one octagonal, the other circular: the former contained more than fifty acres, the latter twenty. East from these and northeast from the great circle was a fine twenty-acre enclosure, nearly a square in form. Besides these great walls, there were long parallel lines of connecting embankment walls, small circular enclosures, and little mounds in considerable variety. This great mass of works represented an enormous amount of time and labor. 

What was the purpose of these regular enclosures? Some writers claim that they were forts for protection; others consider them protections for the corn-fields; others think they were places for games or religious ceremonials; one eminent man insists that they were foundations upon which were built long and narrow houses.

“Altar mounds” occur in Ohio. Professor Putnam and his assistants opened a number of these. They are small, rounded heaps of earth. At their center is a basin-shaped mass of hard clay showing the effect of fire. These basins are a yard or four feet across and contain ashes and charcoal. Upon these are found many curious objects. On one altar were two bushels of ornaments made of stone, copper, mica, shells, bears' teeth, and sixty thousand pearls. Most of these objects were pierced with a small hole and were apparently strung as ornaments. These objects had all been thrown into a fire blazing on the altar and had been spoiled by the heat. After the kindling of the fire, and the destruction of these precious things, earth had been heaped up over the altars, completing the mound.

The most famous mound in Ohio is the great serpent in Adams County. It lies upon a narrow ridge between three streams, which unite. It is a gigantic serpent form made in earth; across the widely opened jaws it measures seventy-five feet; the body, just behind the head, measures thirty feet across and five feet high; following the curves the length is thirteen hundred forty-eight feet. The tail is thrown into a triple coil. In front of the serpent is an elliptical enclosure with a heap of stones at its center. Beyond this is a form, somewhat indistinct, thought by some to be a frog. Probably this wonderful earthwork was connected with some old religion. While there are many other earthworks of other forms in Ohio, the sacred enclosures, the altar mounds, and the great serpent are the most characteristic.

Great Serpent Mound: Ohio. (From The Century Magazine.)

(2) In Wisconsin the most interesting mounds are the effigy mounds. There are great numbers of them in parts of this and a few adjoining states. They are earthen forms of mammals, birds, and reptiles. They are usually in groups; they are generally well shaped and of gigantic size. Among the quadrupeds represented are the buffalo, moose, elk, deer, fox, wolf, panther, and lynx. Mr. Peet, who has carefully studied them, shows that quadruped mammals are always represented in profile so that only two legs are shown; the birds have their wings spread; reptiles sprawl, showing all four legs; fish are mere bodies without limbs. We have said these earth pictures are gigantic: some panthers have tails three hundred and fifty feet long, and some eagles measure one thousand feet from tip to tip of the outspread wings. Not only are these great animal and bird pictures found in Wisconsin in relief; occasionally they are found cut or sunken in the soil. With these curious effigy mounds there occur hundreds of simple burial mounds.

The purpose of the effigy mounds is somewhat uncertain. Some authors think they represent the totem animals after which the families of their builders were named, and that they served as objects of worship or as guardians over the villages.

Ground Plan of Earthworks at Newark, Ohio. (After Squier and Davis.)

(3) Farther south, in western Tennessee, another class of mounds is common. These contain graves made of slabs of stone set on edge. The simplest of these stone graves consist of six stones: two sides, two ends, one top, and one bottom. There may be a single one of these graves in a mound, or there may be many. In one mound, about twelve miles from Nashville, which was forty-five feet across and twelve feet high, were found about one hundred skeletons, mostly in stone graves, which were in ranges, one above another. The upper graves contained the bones of bodies, which had been buried stretched at full length; the bones were found in their natural positions. The lower graves were short and square, and the bones in them had been cleaned and piled up in little heaps. This mound was very carefully made. The lids of the upper graves were so arranged as to make a perfectly smooth, rounded surface. Sometimes these stone graves of Tennessee are not placed in mounds, but in true graveyards in the level fields. In these stone graves are found beautiful objects of stone, shell, and pottery. The stone-grave men were true artists in working these materials.

In the same district are found many dirt rings called “house-circles.” These occur in groups and appear to mark the sites of ancient villages, each being the ruin of a house. These rings are nearly circular and from ten to fifty feet across, and from a few inches to two or three feet high. Excavation within them shows old floors made of hard clay, with the fireplace or hearth. The stone-grave people lived in these houses. They often buried little children who died, under the floor. Their stone coffins measured only from one to four feet long. They contain the little skeletons and all the childish treasures—pretty cups and bowls of pottery, shell beads, pearls, and even the leg bones of birds, on which the babies used to cut their teeth as our babies do on rubber rings.

These are but three of the areas where mounds are found; there are several others. If the “mound-builders” were a single people, with one set of customs, one language, and one government, it is strange that there should be such great differences in the mounds they built. If we had space to speak about the relics from the mounds, they would tell a story.

Shell Gorgets: Tennessee. (After Holmes.)

They would show that the builders of the mounds, while they made many beautiful things of stone, shell, bone, beaten metals, could not smelt ores. They were Stone Age men, not civilized men. The objects from different areas differ so much in kind, pattern, and material as to suggest that their makers were not one people. Study of skulls from mounds in one district—as Ohio or Iowa—show that different types of men built the mounds even of one area.

So neither the mounds, the relics, nor the remains prove that there was one people, the “mound-builders,” but rather that the mounds were built by many different tribes. These tribes were not of civilized, but of barbarous, Stone Age men. It is likely that some of the tribes that built the mounds still live in the United States. Thus the Shawnees may be the descendants of the stone-grave people, the Winnebagoes may have come from the effigy-builders of Wisconsin, and the Cherokees may be the old Ohio “mound-builders.”

Ancient Adena Mound Builder Sites Along S.R. 33 in Columbus, Ohio

Ancient Adena Mound Builder Sites Along S.R. 33 in Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio was once rich in large Adena burial mounds and earthworks. Several sites can still be visited today. Several Adena sites can still be visited along  S.R. 33, on Columbus's west side. Take a visual tour of all of Ohio's largest burial mounds here https://youtu.be/H5NN9nNRQKg

This large Adena mound was once in the village of Dublin, Ohio. The site is now a parking lot.

Near the large mound at Dublin was this Adena Henge site. These earthworks were constructed to align to solar events of the Solstices and Equinox.

Part of the northest circle is still visible in this lawn. The interior ditch and the gateway is all that remain of this earthwork that was constructed as early 500 B.C.

Further south on S.R. 33 in Columbus is the Shrum mound.This photo was taken in the 1920s

The Shrum mound is preserved in a park on Columbus's southeast side a few miles off of S.R. 33

North Fork of Paint Creek Henge Group in Ross County, Ohio

North Fork of Paint Creek Henge Group in Ross County, Ohio

Two large circular Adena earthworks called, Henges have been discovered near the mouth of the North Fork of Paint Creek.  The earthworks could date as early as 500 B.C.  They are located just to the north of the North Fork Earthworks that have recently been purchased.

Two large circular Adena earthworks called, Henges have been discovered near the mouth of the North Fork of Paint Creek.  The earthworks could date as early as 500 B.C.  They are marked on this map as "North Fork Henge."  The Henge group south of these is called the Junction Group Earthworks and have recently been purchased.

Adena Hopewell Earthwork Complex called the Junction Group included two henges that were 660 feet in circumference.

1930s aerial photo shows the two 660 foot henges of the Junction Group.

The North Fork Henge located to the North of the Junction Group is clearly visible in this aerial photo from 1993. 

Pike County, Ohio- Hopewell Ceremonial Earthwork

Pike County, Ohio - Hopewell Ceremonial Earthwork 

ANCIENT EXCAVATION, BIG BOTTOM, PIKE COUNTY, OHIO
    THE works here represented are situated on the west bank of the Scioto River near the line between Pike and Ross Counties. The design appears to have been to form a cut or passage from the bottom land above “Switzer’s Point,” to the bottom land below; but what necessity there was for so expensive a road, is beyond conjecture. The Point (as it is called) is only eighteen or twenty feet above the bottom, and is easy of ascent and descent. Only a very small portion of the earth removed is now to be seen; having been transported to some spot which I did not discover. The banks E, E, E, along a part of the edge of the out, are light; only one and a half feet high and ten broad. The sections or profiles a b, and 0 cl, give the dimensions of this ditch, along which the engineers of the Ohio Canal located a portion of their work. If there were any signs of this passage having been acted upon by running water, we might conclude that it had been used for hydraulic purposes; but its sides and bed are very little injured, or worn away; no more so than we might expect from the effect of rains, frost, &c. There are probably other remains in the vicinity, although I could hear of none. At the north-eastern end of the east bank, E, is an artificial mound five feet high and thirty broad; and near the termination of. the western embankment is a natural one, disconnected with the bank. A little to the west and north-west, is a natural ridge which appears to have been trimmed by art, and to have been used in connection with the lower portion of the western line of embankment. The second bluff is elevated from forty to sixty feet above the river, and is gene rally under cultivation, as well as the rich bottoms, which are very extensive.
   This work has not the appearance of a drain for swampy land or ponds; for it is not on the most direct course to the river. If designed as a work of defence, it has rendered the Point by no means inaccessible; for the bottom land on the other side is comparatively solid ground, and the low bluff presents no natural obstacle. The trench itself, unless filled with water, would be but a slight impediment. It is situated within twelve miles of the “Graded Way,” near Piketon, described in the Smithsonian Contributions, I. p. 88. The mass of earth removed is here greater than at Piketon; where a large portion, though not all, is used in forming the bank at the sides. I think it probable that this class of works was connected with religious or superstitious ceremonies.