Here again you must think of
the conditions under which the work was accomplished. There were
no beasts of burden to share the labor of their owners; the work
was all done by human muscles. Buckets full of earth, each
containing from a peck to a half bushel, borne on the backs of
men or women, slowly built up these walls, which are nearly five
miles in length and which have a maximum height of not less than
twenty feet. Reduced to more familiar measurements the earth
used in the walls was about 172,000,000 cubic feet."
"Can we be wrong in further concluding that this work was done
under a strong and efficient government? Men have always shown
that they do not love hard work, and yet hard work was done
persistently here. Are there not evidences on the face of the
facts that they were held to their tasks by some strong control?
"It is said that the Roman legion required only a square of
seven hundred yards to effect the strongest encampment known to
the ancients of Europe or Asia, but within these formidable
lines there might be congregated at a moment's notice, fifty or
sixty thousand men, with all their materials of war, women,
children, and household goods."
"There are two mounds seen just outside of the walls at the
upper end. From these mounds two low parallel walls extended in
a northeasterly direction some thirteen hundred and fifty feet,
their distant ends joining around a small mound. As this mound
was not well situated for signal purposes, inasmuch as it did
not command a very extensive view, and as the embankments would
afford very little protection unless provided with palisades, it
seems as if the most satisfactory explanation we have is that it
was in the nature of a religious work.
"Mr. Hosea thinks he has found satisfactory evidence that
between these walls there was a paved street, as he discovered
in one place, about two feet below the present surface, a
pavement of flat stones. From this as a hint he eloquently says:
'Imagination was not slow to conjure up the scene which was once
doubtless familiar to the dwellers of Fort Ancient. A train of
worshippers, led by priests clad in their sacred robes and
bearing aloft the holy utensils, pass in the early morning ere
yet the mists have arisen in the valley below, on the gently
swelling ridge on which the ancient roadway lies. They near the
mound, and a solemn stillness succeeds their chanting songs; the
priests ascend the hill of sacrifice and prepare the sacred
fire. Now the first beams of the rising sun shoot up athwart the
ruddy sky, gilding the topmost boughs of the trees.
