PLATE XXV
THE NEWARK WORKS, LICKING COUNTY, OHIO
The very extensive and complicated series of works here presented occur at the junction of the South and Raccoon forks of Licking river, one mile west of the town of Newark, Licking county, Ohio. Like those at Marietta, the works in question occupy a high fertile plain. This plain is here of great extent, and elevated from thirty to fifty feet above the alluvions bordering the streams: it is for the most part level, but in places broken and undulating.
These works are so complicated, that it is impossible to give anything like a comprehensible description of them. The plan, with the illustrative supplementary plans and sections, will furnish a better conception, as a whole and in detail, than, could be afforded in any other way. It will be the object of the text to supply such information as cannot be obtained from the plan.
The group covers an extent of about two miles square, and consists, as will be observed, of three grand divisions, connected by parallels and works of a minor character. The walls of the parallels, and of the irregular portions of the works generally, as well as of the small circles, (of which there are a considerable number,) are very slight; for the most part not exceeding four feet in height. The embankments of (lie principal, or regular portions of the works, are much heavier. Those of the larger circular work, E, are about twelve feet in perpendicular height by fifty feet base, and have an interior ditch seven feet deep by thirty-five wide. At the gateway or entrance, the walls are much higher than at any other point, being not less than sixteen feet in altitude, with a ditch thirteen feet deep, giving an absolute height of about thirty feet from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the embankment. The wall of the lesser circle, F, is six feet in height, and is unaccompanied by a ditch. The walls of the octagonal, as well as of the square work, are but five and a half feet high, and are also destitute of ditches, either exterior or interior.
The circular structure E is undoubtedly one of the best preserved and most imposing in the State. There are many enclosing larger areas, but none more clearly defined. At the entrance, which is towards the east, the ends of the walls curve outwards, for the distance of a hundred feet, leaving a passageway eighty feet wide, between the deep ditches on either hand. Here, covered with the gigantic trees of a primitive forest, the work presents a truly grand and impressive appearance; and, in entering the ancient avenue for the first time, the visitor does not fail to experience a sensation of awe, such as he might feel in passing the portals of an Egyptian temple, or in gazing upon the silent ruins of Petra of the desert. This work is not, as has been generally represented, a true circle; its form is that of an ellipse, its diameters being twelve hundred and fifty feet, and eleven hundred and fifty feet respectively. There are two or three slight irregularities in the outline, too trifling however to be indicated in the plan. The area of the enclosure is something over thirty acres. It is an almost perfect level, and is still covered with the original forest.
Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley: Comprising the Results of Extensive Original Surveys and Explorations (1848).
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2011.10.07 20:13
Did deconstruction turn into blobitecture some time in the 90's?
Wikipedia actually provides decent entries for both Constructivism and Deconstructivism and even Blobitecture. Otherwise, welcome to the Hotel Anecdotal.
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