Every year the plow sinks deeper into these crumbling embankments, and the leveling forces of cultivation are continually at work, and the time is not far distant when the curious traveler will with difficulty trace the ruins of what was once, to the Mound Builders, a place of great importance.
Square and Circle Embankment. The more usual combination was that of a square and a circle. An example is given in this cut, which is a plan on a very small scale, of works which formerly existed in Circleville. One peculiar feature about this work was that a double wall formed the circle, with a ditch between the two walls. In the next cut we notice a peculiar combination of these two figures. The square is inclosed within the circle. Whatever we may ultimately decide as to the larger works, it would seem as if this could only be explained as in the nature of a religious work. We can see no reason for constructing a defensive work, or inclosing a village, or erecting foundations for houses of such a shape as this. They must have been in some way connected with the superstitions of the people.
Square inscribed in a Circle. Circle and Ditch. A peculiar feature is also noticed in reference to some of the smaller circles in this section. The cut at left 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.
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.