Preble County, Ohio - Physical Features, 1881

Physical Features

PREBLE county, if it has no scenery which realizes the grand or approaches the massively sublime, certainly presents to the eye a rare combination of those gentler elements of nature's beauty, which atones for the absence of the ruggedly picturesque. Nature everywhere wears an appearance which indicates her favor to man and adaptability to his good. The landscape everywhere is of that nature which most harmonizingly holds and surrounds the scenes of harvest and the husbandman's home. The rural residences and the tangible evidences of thrift and plenty which cluster around them seem appropriately placed in the pictures which a ride through Preble county discloses to the eye. They are the natural outcome - the crystallizations of the richness of the soil - and, although reared by the industry of man, they have not been wrought with such stress of force, such slow and difficult toil, as in some less favored regions. Not stubbornly or grudgingly has nature yielded here to man, but gladly and with glorious generosity of harvest from the largest of her riches. A benison of beauty seems to rest upon the land and to have as its counterpart and complement the blessing of plenty.

With salubrious climate, fertile soil, capable of bearing as full a variety of crops as any tract of country in its latitude, bountiful and constant water supply, undulating but not rough surface, insuring good drainage, and yet having no lands that are untilable, Preble county lacks no elements which the farmer needs. It has more than these - an inexhaustible supply of limestone of great economic value, and a greater available abundance of good'timber than any other section of the State equal in area.

In this chapter we present a description of the surface features and geology of the county, taken principally from the State geological report.

Topography

Preble county is bounded on the north by Darke, on the east by Montgomery, on the south by Butler, and on the west by the State of Indiana. The drainage of the west side of the county are drained by tributaries of the White river. The surface is generally gently rolling, and there is but a small part of the county which lies flat. Parts of Washington and Jackson townships are quite level, but there are only very small areas from which the water flows sluggishly, and even in these no swamps are found. "The highest land of the county is to be found on the ridge between the drainage basins, the water-shed which extends through Israel, Dixon, Jackson, Jefferson, and Monroe townships. 'The southern portion of the county presents the most attractive appearance. It is beautifully diversified in surface, and, besides being very pleasing to the eye, it eonstiutes a very rich agricultural district. A gcological and a topographical map of Preble county would be found, if compared, to have many points in common. In a general way the altitudes and depressions are connected directly with the geological formation.: The northern portion of the county may bc said to consist of the Upper Silurian formation, and thc southern of the Blue limestone. The former lies higher than the latter and projects into it a promontory which extends below the county line. The Niagara limestone may be said, in a general way, to have an altitude of more than five hundred feet, and the Blue limestone of less than five hundred feet above low water mark at Cincinnati. The following are the altitudes of a few points in the county:

FEET. Batoni(site-of COURTHOUSE etm sas eene ore + SS 612 Camden; (general: level of :towu).. 2 ete aet ren reir 407 County line in section thirty-two, Somers township.............. Gor Northwest corner of Israel township......... cles 656 Summit of Blue limestone at Halderman's mill...........,.... 515 South line of county in section thirty-three, Gratis township...... 586 AVN CHESteN camer o EI NEL. cord mete falar E dc d e p n ME ten ve 425 West Alexandria (valley of Twin creek)......................., 427 Ieewisbürgb. sor E e cma iste NIIS eit ela us Mes qut Kok 495 Sonora Wtailrosd: grade)... 15008, 206 Ee FONS TI CUR 544 Extreme southeast corner of Lanier township, valley of Twin.... 350 Valley of Seven Mile creek, on county line. .......... .......... 325 Ridge passing through Monroe, Jackson, ctc.................- 675

The vertical range of the county is about three hundred and fifty feet, and the geological, as far as the bedded rocks are concerned, is considerably less.

Geological Series

Silurian time, while the other two are of Upper Silurian age. 'The Niagara group has an average thickness of seventy-five feet; the Clinton limestone a thickness of fifteen feet, and the Cincinnati group attains a thickness of two hundred and twenty-five feet. The Blue limestone or Cincinnati group is principally shown in the valleys. The valley of Twin creek is the deepest and widest, but is so much obscured with drift that it does not furnish as satisfactory exposures of the rocky floor as many of the shallower valleys do. Seven Mile creek gives, on the whole, the best exhibition of this series.

much of the way upon the rock, and excellent opportunities are offered for studying the structure and collecting fossils of the formation. The Blue limestone yields a large quantity of building stone, of fair quality. for local use. It was years ago much used for lime, but the advantages of the Cliff limestone for this purpose led to its general adoption as a substitute.

The Clinton limestone comes next in order (ascending,) after the Blue limestone. The line of junction between the Lower and Upper Silurian is very distinct in Preble county. A series of springs, and a very productive belt of country, mark this geological boundary. The shales with which the Blue limestone is terminated are impervious, and as the Clinton limestone that covers them is porous, and is also traversed with lines of fracture, springs must necessarily occur along the line of the two formations. Springs flowing over the margin of shales will do something toward imparting to them fertility, and this particular series of shales possesses the elements of fertility in large measure in their . natural constitution. Many of the finest farms in the county belong to this horizon. The condition of the county in the Morning Star neighborhood of' Lanier township very clearly exemplifies the facts here made mention of.

The Clinton limestone is everywhere uneven in its bedding. The contrast between it and the overlying Dayton stone, or the even courses of the Cincinnati group -beneath is very striking. A layer of the Clinton stone can rarely be followed a rod. The stone itself, in many instances, seems solid, but it lies in very flat, linticular pieces rather than in a regular wall. It is on this account that it is very little valued for building purposes where either of the other formations heretofore named is accessible. Parts of it are sandy in texture, and render the local name of sandstone applied to it appropriate. 'Throughout the exposure of this series in Preble and several adjoining counties beds are everywhere found that acquire the name of firestone.- They are sought for chimney backs and for all similar uses to which ordinary limestone cannot be applied The chemical composition of the stone does not explain this peculiarity. They consist of eighty-four per cent. of carbonate of lime and about twelve per cent. of carbonate of magnesia. They can be burned into a fair article of lime, but endure without crumbling in all ordinary exposure to heat. The Clinton limestoneis in all of its outcrops throughout the county rich in its characteristic fossils. chain corals, bulls-horn corals, and many forms of bryo-

Petroleum Production Geologically Cosidered

In close connection with this fact, viz., that the formation is made up of organic remains, it is to be added that petroleum abounds through many of the exposures of the county. Geologists are generally agreed that petroleum, when occurring in a limestone rock, is derived from the animal remains of the rock, but no explanation can be given of the fact that the product occurs at one point and is wanting in another. When the excitement caused by the discoveries on oil-creek was at its height the show of oil along the outcrop of this formation did not fail to attract attention, and rights to explore and develope the territory were bought up through several counties of Ohio and Indiana. Companies were formed and wells sunk at several points in southwestern Ohio. The deepest. of these was at. Eaton, where the boring was carried eleven hundred and seventy feet below the surface. There was, however, no geological. promise in these undertakings. The Clinton limestone, it is true, is rich in petroleum in many localities, but its thickness does not exceed a dozen feet, and there have been no disturbances in its stratification, by means of which reservoirs for the oil have been prepared. . When the Clinton limestone was passed in the boring the long series of the Cincinnati shales and limestones was not enough to exhaust the limestone series of the State. A considerable fragment of the rock was brought up from a depth of eleven hundred and thirty feet which proved to be a silicious limestone, quite after the pattern of the older limestones of the continent in their more northern latitudes. During the boring various alterations of disappointment and hope were realized by the projectors. The boring was. begun in the Niagara limestone and when the Clinton limestone was reached the show of petroleum was sufficient to kindle a blaze of excitement. The telegraph was used to announce to distant stockholders the success of the enterprise, and the boring was temporarily suspended until a tank could be provided, that there might not be a "sinful waste of oil." There are several points in the county which still yield a fine show of petroleum, the springs that issue from the base of the Clinton limestone being often thickly coated with it. THE NIAGARA GROUP is shown to best advantage in section in the bed and banks of Seven Mile creek at Eaton. There are nearly fifty feet exposed within a mile or two of the village. The ascending order of occurrence is as follows: (1) Dayton limestone, (2) Niagara shale, (3) West Union limestone, (4) Springfield limestone, (s) Cedarville or Guelph limestone. The three lowermost are, in this county, somewhat obscure, and the third has, in fact, not been positively identified. The Eaton building stone belongs in number four of this series. It constitutes the main resource ot the northern part of the county. The same courses, together with the overlying Cedarville 'or Guelph beds, are also struck at New Paris.. The upper beds are here burned extensively for lime, which this horizon everywhere furnishes in central and southern Ohio. The stone agrees in its composition with the Cedarville beds, except that portions of it are highly fossiliferous. An annalysis of the limestone of the Eaton quarries shows 49.75 per cent. of carbonate of lime; 35.87 carbonate of magnesia; 4.46 of alumina and iron, and 9.40 of silicious matter. Among the fossils found in great abundance at Eaton is the well known shell - /entamerus oblongus, and also the more common of the Niagara trilobites. Some of these fossils appear here in greater abundance than in any other locality known, and in great perfection.

On Banta's fork, three miles from Eaton, excellent quarries are worked in the lower beds of the Niagara, and a fine article of flagging stone is secured. Similar courses are worked on the banks of Twin creek, two miles above Euphemia. The most extensively worked quarries of the county are located at New Paris. The upper numbers of the Niagara series are well developed and easily reached. The building stone courses are also accessible. The main interest, however, is the burning of lime, which is distributed mainly to the westward by railroads leading out of Richmond, Indiana. Patent kilns are in use, and the production amounts to three hundred bushels per day for eight months in the year. At the quarries on the east side of Twin creek, opposite Lewisburg, lime has been burned for thirty years.

A fine section is furnished in the bed and banks of Sellers run, of the upper rocks of the county. Beginning with a fine show of the Clinton limestone rich in its characteristic fossils, which is shown near Turner's distillery, the succeeding beds of the Niagara series to the Cedarville inclusive, are traversed and disclosed within the course of a mile.

Drift Deposits

The drift beds of the county cover nearly its entire area, and in general character they agree with the same order of deposits in adjacent regions. The boulder clay, or immodified drift is reached in the digging of many wells. In the northern half of the county this deposit is uniformly deep - so deep as never to be reached in ordinary excavations. Its surface is often covered with the sand, gravel and stratified clay which compose the modified drift of this region, and when so covered it constitutes the water bearer for the area which it occupies. When the boulder clay itself makes the depths within it in some of the seams of sand and gravel that are scattered at irregular intervals through its substance. In the central regions of the county the boulder clay rests directly upon the polished surface of the Niagara limestone, and in the southern it is not seen as distinctly or often, its best exposures being in the deeper valleys. There is every indication that the boulder clay was formed under the great glacial sheet, which, it has been demonstrated, covered the western portions of the continent in the period preceding the present, It is filled with scratched and polished fragments of limestone and northern rocks, compactly laid in the dark blue clay which characterizes the formations of this age in every part of the world where they occur. The seams of sand and gravel interpolated in the clay, doubtless result from partial meltings of the glacial sheet in some of the wilder periods of its history. The ice sheet, in its southern advance, must have found the face of the continent covered with a forest growth and other forms of vegetation. It seems certain that some remnants of this pre-glacial growth are preserved in the boulder clay. Worn fragments of wood are often found deep in the clay, which it seems impossible to refer to any other source.

This pre-glacial vegetation must not, however, be confounded with the inter-glacial growths. The latter is, doubtless, of much more frequent occurrence. It is to a widespread stratum of inter-glacial vegetation that the buried tree tops, roots, leaves, and ancient soil, so often reported in the digging of wells, and other excavations, must be referred. The forest bed, as this stratum has been designated, is of much less frequent occurrence in Preble than in the counties south and east of it, but there are still many evidences of its presence within this area. In Harrison township a tree top is reported to have been struck at a depth of thirty feet. An ochre seam which sometimes accompanies the forest bed and sometimes replaces it in the regions to the southward, is also occasionally met with in Preble county. It is gen- . erally found associated with a gravel seam which it cements into a hardpan, which must be penetrated to reach the water veins. The beds of modified drift, as the sand, gravel, and clay, that overlie the boulder clay in stratified deposits are called, occur abundantly in the county, not being confined to the deeper valleys, but being found also over most of the uplands. In the northern townships, and especially in the flat lying districts, they have a general thickness of twenty feet. Underneath are found the seams of sand and gravel that cover the boulder clay, and which constitute the water bearer of this region.

Phenomenal Boulder Belt

In nearly all particulars the drift of Preble county is a part and parcel of the drift field of Ohio, but there is a single feature in which it has the prominence over all contiguous areas. A very remarkable boulder belt traverses its central and eastern regions - more remakable than any similar belt in the State. There are various points in this general region where boulders are thickly strewn over the surface in limited areas, as, for instance, along the uplands that bound the Great Miami valley for twenty-five miles above Dayton, on the west side of the valley, directly opposite Dayton, and also in the country that lies west of the Stillwater, in the vicinity of Union, Montgomery county; but none of these boulder belts attain the proportion of the Preble county deposit. Its northern boundary is not very distinctly defined, but there is a gradual thickening of the boulders until we find them in the central part of Washington township so numerous as to render tillage of the fields difficult.

From this part the belt can be followed in a broad band to the southeastward, as far as the county line, and even beyond. Its length within the county is at least ten miles. Its greatest breadth does not exceed three miles, but the east and west roads cut across it diagonally, so as to show sections of four or five miles in width.

The boulders range in size from one thousand cubic feet downwards. Of one hundred and two blocks that were lying on the surface within a small compass, the largest was seven feet in length; another measured five feet; four exceeded four feet; six exceeded three feet ; and thirty-five measured more than two feet, while the balance were under that size. It is probable that in this area were nearly as many more concealed by a shallow covering of soil. On one farm near West Alexandria one thousand two hundred boulders, exceeding two feet in diameter, were counted to the acre. There are points where they occur in greater number than this. The value of the land is diminished where it is so thickly covered. The distribution of the boulders is irrespective of the elevations and irregularities of the surface. They cover the high grounds and the low about equally. They control portions of the belt, and occupy a part of the great northern plain of the county, which has an altitude of about one thousand feet above the sea. A considerable variety of composition is shown by the boulders, although the conglomerates are the most common as well as the most characteristic. They agree quite well with each other, and differ in a marked degree from the conglomerates met with elsewhere in the drift field of southwestern Ohio. may hereafter give the clue to the exact location from which they were originally derived. Their peculiarity consists in their distinct stratification. Layers of coarse silicious pebbles are separated from each other by from four to eight inches of fine sandy quartzite, which is very often light green in color and which sometimes has a faint amethystine tint. The conglomerate character is sometimes but feebly shown, and then the blocks would be classed as ordinary quartzites.

The boulders evidently belong to the last stage of the Drift period, to the time of northern submergence which followed and closed the great ice age. They were floated by icebergs across the inland sea that stretched from the Canadian highlands to central Ohio, but no explanation is proffered of the fact that they occur just where they now lie, rather than elsewhere. "The present topography of the country furnishes some suggestions, but no adequate explanation of the phenomena. One of the most remarkable circumstances occurring in the drift is the obstruction of an old valley by the boulder clay. 'This case is met with in the bed of a small tributary of Seven Mile creek, one mile west of the village of Camden. The stream has been compelled to abandon its old course for a short distance, and to work out a new and circuitous channel through the limestone rock.

The Pre-Historic Race

Time was when the face of the country did not appear as the pioneer first saw it - covered with an unbroken forest. Centuries before the sparse, scattered, nomadic Indian population dwelt im the land, and followed the chase through its tangled wood, this country was occupied by a numerous race, a people who had fixed habitations, and the customs of a semi-civilized nation. They lived by agriculture, and the country-was, perhaps, denuded by them of its-forest, if not to as great an extent as now, at least in a considerable degree. Strive as we may, by what little there is of the accumulated light of study and research, we can gain only a meagre amount of knowledge in regard to this people who occupied the continent prior to the age at which its written history begins. The race to which we ascribe the name of Mound Builders is one of which no chapter of history can be written; we can only gain an uncertain and unsatisfying glance behind the great black curtain of oblivion. No record has been kept, no musty legends or vague traditions have been handed down to give us an idea of the character and condition of the ancient race. Only the earth monuments, enclosing a few relics of rude art, and the last lingering remains of mortality - crumbling skeletons, which literally turn to dust as the places of their sepulture are invaded - have endured to silently and solemnly attest, in the nineteenth century, the existence of a vast and vanished race. Concerning the greater questions in regard to this people - their origin, nature, progress, and ultimate destiny, we can gain only a little knowledge fiom the works they have left behind them, and for the rest indulge in fascinating, fanciful, but futile speculations. The subject is one which is full of mysterious interest. Its immensity is awe-inspiring, and the gloom with which it is veiled, while baffling, lends to the study of this branch of archeology an element of enchanting romance.

'The ancient works, commonly attributed to the Mound Builders, are spread over a large extent of country. They dot the valleys from the Alleghanies to the far northwest, and extend from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. They are to be found upon the Missouri a thousand miles from its confluence with the Mississippi ; upon the Kansas and Platte, and on other remote western rivers. They spread over the valley of the Mississippi, and line the shore of the gulf from Texas to

Carolina. They occur in great numbers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Texas, and are less numerously distributed through the western parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and in North and South Carolina, as also in Michigan, Iowa and the Mexican possessions. That the earthworks are distributed evenly over this territory should not be imagined. They are confined, principally to the valleys of the rivers and large streams, and the few discovered elsewhere are small, with few exceptions.

Within the State of Ohio there are undoubtedly over ten thousand mounds and other earthworks. They are much more numerous in the southern than in the northern part, and nowhere else in the State appear in greater number or variety than in the Scioto valley, which indeed seems to have been the seat of empire of the pre-historic race or at least the centre of population and . theatre of government for a very large region.

The mounds and enclosures scattered through Ohio and the wider territory, we have just outlined, are of several classes. The enclosures may be classified as defensive works and religious enclosures. The tumuli or mounds are generally subdivided, by students, into Sepulchral, Sacrificial, Temple (or truncated) mounds, Mounds of Observation and Memorial or Monumental mounds,

Nothing is more absolutely sure in regard to the Mound Builders than that the irregular enclosures were primarily and principally intended as works of defence, They may have. subserved other purposes, but they were constructed to answer as strongholds against an enemy, They are always found on high ground and in naturally strong positions. They usually occupy the summits of hills or plateaus, and often occur at the confluence of streams. The walls wind around the borders of the high land they occupy, and it is often to be noticed that they are thickest and highest at these points, which are naturally most easily accessible. In some instances miles of wall are found enclosing perhaps more than a hundred acres of land. The people who built these defences had certainly no mean order of military skill. They chose almost exactly the same situations upon which modern military engineers would locate forts, should the country be the scene of war - positions which could be given the maximum of resisting power with the minimum of outlay in labor. Fine examples of defensive works occur in Butler, Highland, Ross, Licking and Greene counties, and perhaps the most notable is the celebrated. Fort Ancient in Warren county. The work in Preble county, at the confluence of Banta's fork and Twin creek, is of this order, though much smaller and simpler than many to be seen in other parts of the State. The walls of most of the enclosures are of earth, a few of stone, and in rare instances, of stone and earth combined. The immense amount of work necessary to the construction of these fortifications precludes the notion that they were hastily thrown up to repel a single invasion, They were for defence against a known and powerful enemy, and were probably the protecting wall against a fierce war-loving nation for many years. It is safe to suppose that as they were constructed through the exercise of a wonderful industry and steadfastness of purpose, the race of people who reared them had the courage to defend them and their country persistently against any odds.

The so called sacred enclosures are distinguished from the military works by their more frequent occurrence and by the regularity of their construction in geometrical figures - circles, squares, hexagons, octagons, ellipses, and parallelograms. Not unfrequently several of these forms appear in conjunction. Great skill is exhibited in the construction of this class of works. The plans show a perfection which could not have been attained without the exercise of some science similar to modern surveying. The evidence that works of this class were intended for religious uses is apochryphal. That they were not intended as military works appears altogether probable, from the fact that the fosse, or ditch, usually occurs inside the embankment. The enclosures may have been occupied by the houses of the rulers of the race, by those of the priesthood, and they may also have contained the temples which an idolatrous people raised, as the shrines of their gods. It is not improbable that such were the purposes for which these works were designed, and they may have been the theatres where great councils were held and games indulged in, as well as the places where were observed, on a colossal scale, the rites of asuperstitious religion. There is evidence that they were intended for the assemblage of a vast concourse of people. The great circles of England, India, Peru, and Mexico, are similar to these sacred works, and within them have been found the shrines of the gods of the ancient worship. They may also have contained consecrated groves. We know that it has been a practice common to almost every people, in every time, to enclose their shrines, their places of worship, that they might be guarded from the profanation of man and the desecration of beasts. Frequently there is situated in the center of this class of works a mound or elevation, supposed to have served the purposes of an altar, on which animal, or, possibly, human sacrifices were offered. The writer has in several localities found stones in the center of these works which indicated subjection to intense and long-continued heat. Parallel ways, often termed covered ways, because they are supposed originally to have been constructed as the latter name implies, often connect two or more of the geometrical enclosures, or lead from them toward the streams, or to their ancient banks. Their supposed use was to afford protection to those passing to and fro within them. As the rounded embankments of the enclosures would not afford an absolutely impassable wall, it has been conjectured that they were originally surmounted by palisades or palings. TUMULI.

Stately marble palaces and temples have fallen into shapeless masses of ruin, while the simple mounds erected by a more rude and primitive people, have withstood the elements and retained almost perfectly their original forms and proportions. "Therefore, we find scattered throughout a wide country the mound monuments raised by an ancient race. These tumuli were among nearly all races in their infancy, the first objects of which ambition and adoration prompted the erection, the primitive memorials of all peoples. They are the principal storehouse of ancient art; they enclose the sacred altar, reared in the name of a lost religion; they hold in sepulture the bones of the distinguished dead. As disclosed by the pick and the spade, these mounds and their contents serve to give the investigating arche- ologist the most extensive knowledge he can obtain in regard to the customs of their builders, and the condition of the arts and sciences among them.

Most of the mounds are of the kind denominated - sepulchral. 'They are generally of conical form, and vary in size from six to eighty or ninety feet in height. 'They usually stand outside of the walls of enclosures, but often occur in localities remote from any other works. There are cases in which they occur in groups, exhibiting a dependence that probably has some meaning. The mounds of this class invariably cover a skeleton, and in some instances more than one. The skeletons most commonly bear evidences of having been enveloped at the time of their interment in bark, coarse matting, or cloth, of which traces and casts nearly always remain. It sometimes happens that the cloth itself still exists, in a highly carbonized condition. Occasionally a rude chamber of stone surrounds the re- Burial by fire seems to bave prevailed among the Mound Builders of the north, and urn burial was more commonly practiced in the south. With the skeletons are found various remains of art, rude utensils of different kinds, ornaments and weapons. The fact that such articles always appear in proximity to the remains indicates that the Mound Builders, like the North American Indians, entertained the superstitious and delusive notion that the implements and weapons would be useful to the deceased in another state. It is vulgarly believed that the ancient race reared mounds over all of their dead, an idea which is quickly dispelled by reflection upon the immensity of their population and the comparatively small number of the mounds. The conclusion to which all archeologists have come, in regard to this matter, is that only the illustrious chieftains, the rulers or the priests of the race,' were honored by the rearing of mounds over their places of sepulture, and ied by the process of simple interment. Day after day, and year after year, since the present race pushed westward into the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, the ploughshare has uncovered remains which have well nigh "returned to the dust whence they came." So common has been the occurrence of unearthing remains in some parts of the country, that the discovery scarcely elicits remark. The wasting banks of the rivers occasionally display vast cemeteries, and names have been given to various localities from such exposures. It is not to be wondered at that where the bones in the mounds have so nearly crumbled into shapeless fragments, those buried in the common plain, and which are necessarily less protected from moisture, should in many cases have passed into that condition nearly or quite indistinguishable from the mould that surrounds them. It is impossible that any but the smallest proportion of these remains should be those of the Indian race. They are of a different and more ancient people. There are, doubtless, grand depositories of the dead who thronged and raised the silent monuments which we see all around us. We know not when we tread the village street or the green turf of the fields, but that we walk over the

Sacrificial or altar mounds have several distinctive characteristics. They usually exhibit stratification consisting of alternate layers of sand, clay and gravel, or pebbles. 'The strata are not horizontal, but conform to the convexity of the mound. "These mounds contain altars of stone or fire-hardened clay, built upon the original level of the earth. Upon them are found ashes, charcoal and calcined bones, indicating sacrifice. Various implements also occur, as well as beads and other ornaments, and pottery. The remains found in the sacrificial mounds are, in numerous cases, in a condition to indicate that the altars were covered over with earth before their fires had. ceased burning. Why they were so covered, or why covered at all, are questions which no man can answer. Perhaps it was to conceal them from the profane gaze of the people of another faith.

Temple mounds are not numerous in Ohio, and it is believed do not occur except at Marietta, Newark, Portsmouth and in the vicinity of Chillicothe. They are usually in the form of truncated cones, though sometimes so broad and flat as to make this term hardly applicable to them. It is supposed that they were once surmounted with structures of wood, all traces of which have long ago disappeared.

Mounds of observation are generally situated upon eminences, and it has been demonstrated by actual survey in some parts of the country that they are so situated in reference to each other that signals could easily be communicated along a line or chain of them. It is the supposition that they answered the same purpose as cairns of the ancient Celts - tbat is, they were signals or alarm posts as well as coignes of vantage and lookout stations. Along the Miami river, says Judge Force, "are dotted small mounds on projecting highlands, which seem to have been built to carry intelligence by signals along the valleys." They are numerous throughout the State.

Memorial or monumental mounds belong to the class of tumuli that were obviously built to perpetuate the memory of some important event. They are the equivalents of the stone heaps raised by the Hebrews and other nations. This class of mounds seldom contain any human remains or other deposits. When they do contain skeletons, as in a few cases, they are those of Indians interred in shallow graves.

Effigies, animal mounds, or, as they are sometimes called, emblematical or symbolical mounds, occur in greatest number in Wisconsin. Only a few are known in Ohio, the most notable being the eagle and the alligator in Licking county, and the serpent and egg in Adams county. The last named is upwards of a thousand feet in length and is a very perfect representation.

Deductions And Speculations

Taking into consideration the facts here very briefly presented, the reader can form some idea of the probable nature of the ancient people, and of their number. Caleb

Atwater, in a contribution to the Archwologia Americana, published in 1819, says: "The State of Ohio was probably once much more thickly settled than it now is, when it contains a population of about seven hundred thousand inhabitants." And we may add that the conclusion has been assented to and affirmed by nearly every student of western antiquities. That the Mound Builders were under a single and strong government seems very probable, because under any other the performance of such an immense amount of labor could not well have been secured. It is suggested by Mr. Isaac Smucker that some sort of servitude or vassalage prevailed.

It follows of necessity that if the Mound Builders were a numerous race they were also an agricultural people. The population was much too large to be sustained by the chase, by the spontaneous yieldings of the earth, the products of the streams, or all combined. They were not savages or barbarians, but attained that condition of life which is best described as semi-civilized. The general features of their works and their art remains prove this. They had some knowledge of mathematics and engineering, understood spinning and weaving, © and the manufacture of pottery, They were undoubtedly essentially homogeneous in government, religion and general customs. Strongly swayed by a superstitious religion, as they doubtless were, it is not improbable that the government of the Mound Builders was one which sustained and made obligatory the observance of elaborate rites. Their priests were undoubtedly their civil leaders. The great number and vast size of those works which were incontestably constructed for religious observances, proved the great regard that the ancient people had for their religion. The sacrificial character of their worship is beyond a doubt.

When and from whence came the Mound Builders, and when and whither did they go? These are questions to which there comes no answering voice. Only the smallest evidence and that of the apochryphal kind has been received, tending to show that the ancient race had a written language. The two or three engraved tablets that have been discovered, even if genuine, there is reason to believe, will throw but little light upon the origin or subsequent history of the people, should . scholars succeed in deciphering them. And it is improbable that any discoveries will ever be made, which will settle these most mooted questions.

Those who do not argue that the Mound Builders were an aboriginal race generally agree that they had their origin in the Orient, or at least in some trans-Pacific region, and that they came to this continent by Behring's straits, and then passing slowly southward and eastward, increasing as they went, they reached the middle region of the northern United States, and from thence, by slow process of extension or migration, made their way southward through the Mississippi valley, and ultimately into Mexico. The resemblances between the tumuli of the United States and the teocalli of Mexico suggest some connection between the Mound Builders and the semi-civilized races that formerly dwelt in the latter country, in Central

Another theory is that the race instead of journeying southward, improving constantly in condition and increasing largely in population, had their origin in Mexico or some other part of tropical or semi-tropical South or North America, and emigrated northward, gradually retrograding in civilization until they reached the lake region and became so barbarous in their habits of life as to have lost their early habits of industy, their civilized customs and their government. This theory has but little support - its opposite being the one favored by most archeologists. Beside the fact that the similarity between the ancient works in the northern part of the United States, those along the Mississippi, and those in Mexico, points to their creation by the same race of people, the history and traditions of the early Mexican people, which extend back to the seventh century, afford something of a corroborating nature. The people of Montezuma, as that uphappy ruler informed Cortez, knew by their looks that they were not natives, but strangers, who came from a great distance. Thus it will be seen, if the Mound Builders were the progenitors of the race to which Montezuma belonged, they must have arrived in Mexico prior to the close of the seventh century. The Aztecs are said by Mexican authorities to have arrived in the year 648. 'To that race they ascribe the teocalli, with which their country abounds. If we allow ourselves to be influenced by the above date, supposing indeed that the Aztecs were the descendants of the Mound Builders, we must necessarily regard the ancient remains of our country as belonging to a period prior to the date given. The same or an even greater degree of antiquity is indicated by other evidence, The exceedingly decayed condition of the skeletons in the mounds, the amount of vegetable accumulation in the excavations, the age of trees standing upon the mounds and embankments, the shifting of the river channels since the works were constructed on their shores, and the fact that none of the Mound Builders' works are found upon the latest formed terraces, or river bottoms, nor north of the northermost lake ridge, all point to the conclusion that a great time has elapsed since the ancient race inhabited the country. Some of the trees have been known to have an age of from six to eight hundred years, and such trees have been found surrounded with the mouldering trunks of others, undoubtedly of equal original size. Allowance must he made for a reasonable time for the encroachment of the forest after the works were abandoned by the builders, and then how great seems their age when we reflect that they are covered by at least the second growth of forcst.

But the hoary antiquity of the stateliest monarchs of the wood cannot carry us back to the time when the builders of the enduring earth monuments dwelt in our land. We can only know that a vast population filled the valleys and the fertile regions, and passed away; that a nation existed and is gone, leaving no page of history to carry through the ages the story of its origin and destiny. All that the student desires to know, that for which he has anxiously but vainly sought, has been engulfed in the illimitable oblivion that holds so much more of the history of human life - how much we cannot tell.

And here another thought arises - the conception of a possbility so stupendous and awe-inspiring, as to render the subject of our former speculation, vast though it is and fraught with mysterious interest, dwarfed by the comparison. Vast as may have been the age that has elapsed since our land has been the theatre of this unknown race, it is but a brief period in the cycles of time that have swept by since the first dawn of the world, and ancient as we are accustomed to regard the Mound Builders of America, they may have been only the last in a series of vanished races of men - the blood of the earth that has gone forth at every pulse beat of the creation, every heart throb of the Infinite.

Local Works

The most important of the Mound Builder remains in Preble county is the defensive enclosure situated at the confluence of Twin creek and Banta's fork, in Lanier township. The embankments here have been rendered less distinct than those of many similar works in other parts of the county. The slow wear of time, and the more telling work of the plowshare, have both had their effect upon the ancient walls, and they retain but little of their original semblance or even of the appearance which they presented to the early residents of the 'county. That the enclosure was intended for purposes of defence does not admit of a doubt. The site chosen was in itself a natural stronghold. The high land projecting like a wedge between the two streams could easily be guarded against the «assault of an enemy, with no other than the advantages which its position affords. The earthworks constructed here would enable a small force of men to hold the situation against large odds, and it was, doubtless, to the ancient people, a practically impregnable fortress. It is very probable that the earth walls carried along the crest of the hill on two sides and across the level from the Twin creek side to the bank of its tributary stream, were surmounted by heavy palings or palisades. Still there is. no positive evidence that such was the case, and we only form that conclusion from the fact that indications of such palings have been found elsewhere in defensive enclosures. The area enclosed by the embankments consists of several acres. There was evidently a gateway in the wall extending across the promontory, and there reinains some indication of an earthen construction leading down the side hill upon the southeast side, very likely a passage-way by which the occupants of the fort, when in a state of siege, could reach the bed of Twin creek to procure from it water, without being exposed to the missiles of the enemy. The stream which evidently once flowed at the base of the bank has receded to a distance of several hundred feet, and therein is an evidence of the antiquity of the works, though an indefinite one, and of comparatively little value. Banta's fork does not appear to have shifted its channel since the remote time when the fortification was constructed. Several mounds occur at no great distance from this enclosure, and such is their position that it is natural to infer that they may have been used as signal stations or coignes of vantage from which the approach of an enemy might have been observed. This work is by no means a remarkable one, and the in-

| terest that would naturally attach to it is materially. lessened by its poor state of preservation. We should not have devoted so much space to its description but for the fact that it is the only enclosure known in Preble county.

There are, however, a large number of mounds within the limits of Preble, probably not less than a hundred. But few of them have been excavated, and none with very remarkable results. Among the most important we may mention the following: A large one on the Ozias farm, east of Lewisburgh, one on the Eaton and Lewisburgh road, about a mile southwest of the latter place, and quite noticeable from the roadway, especially as one journeys toward Lewisburgh. There is a specimen of the Mound Builders' work on the farm of Franklin Pierce, near Camden, and one in the southern part of Somers township, near Somerville. There is a large mound on the Samuel Bennett farm in Dixon township, two on the Frank Dunlap farm, and another on the corner of Dixon and Israel townships, where the farms of Messrs. Pinkerston and McQuoiston adjoin. Two others in this vicinity are to be found on the John Mc- Divitt farm, near Fair Haven. In Gasper township there are several mounds along Seven Mile, on the Albaugh, Duffield and Abram Sayler farms. From the one on the last named farm two copper axes were taken and an abundance of flints. Thé mound in the Eaton cemetery is well known, as it gives name to this resting place of the dead. When it was opened to receive the dust of Lowery and his comrades, who fell in 1793, charcoal was found near the base - an indication that it had been an altar or sacrificial mound, or perhaps a place where burned the sacred fire of an unknown religion. There is also a mound on the farm of John Kinkaid, in Washington township, one on the farm of Benjamin Homan, sr., one on the Griffis farm, half a mile from the former. The last mentioned is of good size. In Harrison township there is a mound a quarter of a mile east of Euphemia, and another on the Christian Stone farm, near Scuffletown. In Dixon township the novel sight is to be seen of a house built upon a mound. Near West Florence is a small tumulus upon one of the Kelley farms. The tumuli are also of quite frequent occurrence in Israel township, and in the vicinity of New Paris, Jefferson township, and in the valley of Twin creek. A very fine mound, of large size and beautifully symmetrical in appearance, is to be seen on the Swartzel farm in Monroe ornaments have been found in Preble county, and the discoverers have formed them into collections owned into other localities, Smith Hunt, of Richmond, Indiana, has probably gathered more articles from Preble county than any other one man. Many of his pur- 'chases and "finds" have been sent to the Rose Polytechnic institute, at Terre Haute, Indiana, as have also many gathered by Mr. G. Dix Hendricks, of Eaton. This gentleman has at various times had in his possession some of the rarest and most valuable archeological specimens that have been brought to light in Preble county He has been an indefatigable collector and brought to bear in his work rare judgment, obtaining thereby not only a local but general reputation among archeologists. He has sent many pieces to the Rose Polytechnic institute and to R. W. Mercer, of Cincinnati.

Albert Horn, of Lewisburgh, and Miss Mary Bloom, of Jefferson township, have also made collections, though small ones, and N. B. Stephens, of Eaton, has amassed quite a quantity of specimens, among which are some which are very rare and curious, He has a stone axe weighing twelve pounds, a very beautiful piece of workmanship which was found on the Ross Conger farm; a twenty-six-inch roller picked up on the Eli Fisher farm in Washington township, and a large collection of commoner articles. The gem of his collection is a small, hard stone carved in the shape of a canoe, and perforated with two holes through its bottom as if for the purpose of suspending it about the neck of him who was originally its possessor. It is of excellent workmanship, and certainly a unique specimen. It was found on the old Lewallen farm on Four Mile creek, in Dixon township. Mr. Stephens' collection is undoubtedly the best that is owned in the county, both in size and in the variety and value of specimens.

Matthias Disher, of Twin township, has in his possession some fragments of pottery found in a gravel bank on the farm now owned by Ezra Ozias One of the pieces has upon it an ear-like projection or handle. The vessel was probably whole until broken by the plowshare which unearthed it. It was a jar or urn, and of very good form.