actly, the great inclosures and
high mounds are much less common than low truncated pyramids, and
pyramidal platforms or foundations with dependent works. Passing up the
valley, it is found that Marietta, Newark, Portsmouth, Chillicothe,
Circleville, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri, and Frankfort, Kentucky, were
favorite seats of the Mound-Builders. This leads one of the most
intelligent investigators to remark that "the centres of population are
now where they were when the mysterious race of Mound-Builders existed."
There is, however, this difference: the remains indicate that their most
populous and advanced communities were at the South. Figure 10 shows a
fortified hill in Butler County, Ohio.

[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Fortified Hill, Butler County, Ohio.]

Among those who have examined and described remains of the
Mound-Builders, Messrs. Squier and Davis rank first in importance,
because they have done most to give a particular and comprehensive
account of them. Their great work, published by the Smithsonian
Institution, must be regarded as the highest authority, and those who
desire to study the whole subject more in detail will find that work
indispensable.

EXTENT OF THEIR SETTLEMENTS.

Careful study of what is shown in the many reports on these ancient
remains seems plainly to authorize the conclusion that the
Mound-Builders entered the country at the South, and began their
settlements near the Gulf. Here they must have been very numerous, while
their works at every point on the limit of their distribution, north,
east, and west, indicate a much less numerous border population. Remains
of their works have been traced through a great extent of country. They
are found in West Virginia, and are spread through Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Iowa to Nebraska. Lewis and Clarke reported seeing them on the
Missouri River, a thousand miles above its junction with the
Mississippi; but this report has not been satisfactorily verified. They
have been observed on the Kansas, Platte, and other remote Western
rivers, it is said. They are found all over the intermediate and the
more southern country, being most numerous in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas.

This ancient race seems to have occupied nearly the whole basin of the
Mississippi and its tributaries, with the fertile plains along the Gulf,
and their settlements were co