New-York Magazine; or, Literary Repository October, 1791, p.555
Indian Ruins.
For the New-York Magazine.
EXPLANATION of the PLATE
No. 1. The town.
2. The fort.
3. A circular parapet and ditch, surrounding a pyramid of earth 50 feet high, and 150 feet
diameter at its base. The parapet is 240 yards in circumference.
4. An advanced work.
5. Graves.
6. A covered way.
7. A water course.
8. Low land.
Towers
Caves
These remains of Indian ingenuity, are unequalled by any other discovered vestiges of that people,
from the lake of Mexico to the arctic circle. The best judges of modern defence declare, that, artillery out of the question,
no situation in that country could be happier chosen to repel an enemy. It is impossible to determine
when these prodigious mounds were constructed, as the trees which grow upon every part of them indicate equal
antiquity with those of the surrounding wilderness.
The city of Marietta stands upon this celebrated ground, and fosters those very arts and sciences which, perhaps,
ten thousand moons ago were known and practiced on the same spot. Marietta may, in its turn, be traced only
by its ruins, and aboriginal Muskingum experience resuscitation -- for this is the way with man's strange globe.
R.
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