or opening from the forecourt. These are enclosed by earthen mounds varying from 5 to 30 feet in height, with the ditch almost invariably on the inside.
The last peculiarity is in itself, as in the case of the English circles, quite sufficient to preclude the idea of their being fortifications or meant for defence, and they certainly are not sepulchral in any sense in which we understand the term. In the first place, because we know perfectly what the sepulchres of these people were, from the thousands and tens of thousands of tumuli which dot the plains everywhere; but also because, unlike the English circles, which are as a rule found in the most remote and barren spots, these American enclosures as generally occupy the flattest and richest spots in the country. They are most frequently situated near the rivers, and on the natural lines of communication; so much so indeed that many of the cities of the present occupants of the country stand on the same spots and within the enclosures of the earlier races who raised these mounds.
We are thus left to the choice between two hypotheses. Either they are sacred enclosures, as suggested by our authors, or they are royal residences — temples or palaces.
All the arguments, derived from its excessive size, that were urged against Avebury being a temple, apply with redoubled force to these American enclosures. Temples occupying 50 to 100 acres are certainly singular anomalies when we try to realise what these admeasurements imply. Our largest square, Lincoln's Inn Fields, occupies only 12 acres; the Green Park is 53; and all our parks together do not occupy the same space as the Newark enclosures, which, according to Messrs. Squier and Davis, cover more than four square miles.[1] Yet all these are circles and squares with connecting lines, and all with inside ditches. Temples of these dimensions, without divisions, or enclosures, or mounds, or permanent works of any kind, are anomalies difficult to understand, and must belong to some religion of which I, at least, have no knowledge; and no one, so far as I know, has yet suggested what that religion was, nor how these vast spaces could be utilized for any religious purpose.
- ↑ 'Ancient Monuments,' &c., p. 49. Hyde Park, including Kensington Gardens, occupies about one square mile.
