No. 1. Graded-way Near Piketon, Pike Co. Ohio.
No. 2. Ancient Work Near Sommerville, Butler Co. Ohio.
No. 3. Ancient Work on Nine Mile Creek, Butler Co. Ohio.
No. 4. Ancient Work on Great Miami River, Butler Co. Ohio.]
From the end of the right-hand wall, upon the third terrace, extends a low line of embankment, (now much obliterated by the construction of the turnpike,) two thousand five hundred and eighty feet long, leading towards a group of mounds, as shown in the plan. At the distance of fifteen hundred feet from the grade, a wall starts off at right angles, for the distance of two hundred and twelve feet, when it assumes a course parallel to the principal line for four hundred and twenty feet, and then curves inwardly, terminating near a group consisting of one large and three small mounds. A ground plan of the latter is elsewhere given. This group of mounds is now enclosed, and constitutes the cemetery of the neighborhood. Forty rods to the right of this group, is a large mound thirty feet in height. Several small mounds occur upon the adjacent plain, though no enclosures of magnitude are found nearer than five miles lower down, on the river.
The left-hand wall of the grade as we descend seems continued down upon the second terrace for some distance, terminating near a low spot of ground, usually containing water. Similar depressions are observed in the ancient beds of streams. It has been suggested that the Scioto river once flowed along the base of the terrace at this point, and that the way led down to it. Without expressing an opinion upon the probability of this conjecture, it is sufficient to observe that the river now flows more than half a mile to the left, and that two terraces, each twenty feet in height, intervene between the present and the supposed ancient level of the stream. To assent to the suggestion, would be to admit an almost immeasurable antiquity to the structure under consideration.
It is, of course, useless to speculate upon the probable purpose of this work. At first glance, it seems obvious; namely, that it was constructed simply to facilitate the ascent from one terrace to another. But the long line of embankment extending from it, and the manifest connection which exists between it and the mounds upon the plain, unsettle this conclusion. After all, we are obliged to leave this interesting work with the single remark, already several times made in respect to others equally interesting and inexplicable, that future investigations, carefully conducted, may solve alike the problem of their purposes and of their origin.[68] [p090]