From the facts thus presented to our consideration, it is obvious that the highest estimate we can entertain of the powers of combination indicated by the famous League of the Iroquois, furnishes no evidence of a capacity for the construction and maintenance of works akin to the strongholds of the Mound-Builders in the Ohio valley. Striking as is the contrast which the Iroquois present to more ephemeral savage tribes, the remains of their earthworks present in some respects a greater contrast to those of the Mound-Builders than the latter do to the elaborate architecture of Mexico and Yucatan. There are indeed points of resemblance between the strongholds of the two, as there are between them and the British hill-forts, or any other earthworks erected on similar sites; but beyond such general elements of comparison,—equally interesting, but as little indicative of any community of origin as the correspondence traceable between the flint and stone weapons in use by the builders of both,—there is nothing in such resemblances calculated to throw any light on the origin of those remarkable monuments of the New World. It is rather from the contrast between the two that we may turn the remains of Iroquois defences to account, as suggestive of a greatly more advanced condition of social life and the arts of a settled population among the Mound-Builders of the Mississippi and its tributaries. Further proofs of the settled character of this ancient population are furnished by another class of defensive works, supposed to mark the sites of fortified towns. One of these, called “Clark’s Work,” on the north fork of Point Creek, in the Scioto valley, embraces an area of one hundred and twenty-seven acres; and encloses within its circumvallations sacrificial mounds, and symmetrical earthworks assumed with every probability to have been designed for religious or civic purposes. A stream has been turned into an entirely new channel, in order to admit of the completed circuit of the walls. “The embankments measure together nearly three miles in length; and a careful computation shows that, including mounds, not less than three million cubic feet of earth were used in their composition.”[83] Within the enclosures thus laboriously executed, many of the most interesting relics of ancient art have been dug up, including several coiled serpents of carved stone, carefully enveloped in sheet mica and copper; pottery, fragments of carved ivory, discoidal stones, and numerous fine sculptures.