"The most skilful engineer of this day would find it difficult," says
Mr. Squier, "without the aid of instruments, to lay down an accurate
square of the great dimensions above represented, measuring, as they do,
more than four-fifths of a mile in circumference. . . . But we not only
find accurate squares and perfect circles, but also, as we have seen,
octagons of great dimensions."
They also possessed an accurate system of weights; bracelets of copper
on the arms of a skeleton have been found to be of uniform size,
measuring each two and nine-tenth inches, and each weighing precisely
four ounces.
They built great military works surrounded by walls and ditches, with
artificial lakes in the centre to supply water. One work, Fort Ancient,
on the Little Miami River, Ohio, has a circuit of between four and five
miles; the embankment was twenty feet high; the fort could have held a
garrison of sixty thousand men with their families and provisions.
Not only do we find pyramidal structures of earth in the Mississippi
Valley very much like the pyramids of Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, but a
very singular structure is repeated in Ohio and Peru: I refer to the
double walls or prolonged pyramids, if I may coin an expression, shown
in the cut page 375.
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