Marietta, are elevated squares, situated at the corners, one hundred and eighty feet long, by one hundred and thirty broad, nine feet high, and level on the top. On these squares, erected at the corners of this great enclosure, were doubtless placed some modes of annoyance to a besieging enemy; such as engines to sling stones with, or to throw the dart and spear, or whatever might have been their modes of defence.

Outside of this fort, is a mound, differing in form from their general configuration: its shape is that of a sugar loaf, the base of which is more than a hundred feet in circumference; its height thirty, encompassed by a ditch, and defended by a parapet, or wall beyond the ditch, about breast high, through which is a way toward the main fort. Human bones have been taken from many of these mounds, and charcoal, with fragments of pottery; in one place, a skeleton of a man, buried east and west, after the manner of enlightened nations, was found, as if they understood the cardinal points of the compass. On the breast of this skeleton was found a quantity of isinglass, a substance considered sacred by the Mexicans, and adored as a deity.

Ruins of a Roman Fort at Marietta.

BUT, respecting this fort, as above, we imagine that even the Romans may have built it, however strange this may appear. The reader will be so kind as to have patience, till we have advanced all our reasons for this strange conjecture, before he casts it from him as impossible.

Our reasons for this idea arise out of the great similarity there ́ is between its form and fortifications, and camps, built by the ancient Romans. And in order to show the similarity, we have quoted the account of the forms of Roman camps, from Josephus's description of their military works. See his works, Book v. chap. 5, page 219, as follows:

"Nor can their enemies easily surprise them with the suddenness of their incursions, for as soon as they have marched into an enemy's land, they do not begin to fight till they have walled their

camp about; nor is the fence they raise rashly made, or uneven; nor do they all abide in it; nor do those that are in it take their place at random: but if it happens that the ground is uneven, it is first levelled."

"Their camps are also four square by measure; as for what space is within the camp, it is set apart for tents, but the outward circumference hath the resemblance to a wall; and is adorned with towers at equal distances, where, between the towers, stand the engines for throwing arrows and darts, and for slinging stones, where they lay all other engines that can annoy the enemy, ready for their several operations.

"They also erect four gates, one in the middle of each side of the circumference, or square, and those large enough for the entrance of beasts, and wide enough for making excursions, if occasion should require. They divide the camp within into streets, very conveniently, and place the tents of the commanders in the middle; in the very midst of all, is the general's own tent, in the nature and form of a temple, insomuch that it appears to be a city built on the sudden, with its market place, and places for handicraft trades, and with seats for the officers, superior and inferior, where, if any differences arise, their causes are heard and determined.

"The camp, and all that is in it, is encompassed with a wall round about, and that sooner than one would imagine, and this by the multitude and skill of the laborers. And if occasion require, a trench is drawn round the whole, whose depth is four cubits, and its breadth equal," which is a trifle more than six feet in depth and width.

The similarity between the Roman camps and the one near Marietta, consists as follows: they are both four square; the one standing near the great fort, and is connected by two parallel walls, as described; has also a ditch surrounding it, as the Romans sometimes encircled theirs; and, doubtless, when first constructed, had a fence of timber (as Josephus says the Romans had,) all around it, and all other forts of that description; but time has destroyed them.

If the Roman camp had its elevated squares at its corners, for the purposes of overlooking the foe, and of shooting stones, darts and arrows; so had the fort at Marietta, of more than a hundred

feet square, on an average, of their forms, and nine feet high. Its parapets and gateways are similar; also the probable extent of the Roman encampments agrees well with the one at Marietta, which embraces near fifty acres within its enclosure; a space sufficient to have contained a great army; with streets and elevated squares at its corners, like the Romans. Dr. Morse, the geographer, says, the war camps of the ancient Danes, Belga and Saxons, as found in England, were universally of the circular, while those of the Romans, in the same country, are distinguished by the square form; is not this, therefore, a trait of the same people's work in America as in England?

Who can tell but during the four hundred years the Romans had all the west of Europe attached to their empire, but they may have found their way to America, as well as other nations, the Welch and Scandinavians, in after ages, as we shall show before we end the volume.

Rome, it must be remembered, was mistress of the known world, as they supposed, and were in the possession of the arts and sciences; with a knowledge of navigation, sufficient to traverse the oceans of the globe, even without the compass, by means of the stars by night, and the sun by day.

The history of England informs us, that as early as fifty-five years before the Christian era, the Romans invaded the island of Britain, and that their ships were so large and heavy, and drew such a depth of water, that their soldiers were obliged to leap into the sea and fight their way to the shore, struggling with the waves and the enemy, both at once, because they could not bring their vessels near the shore, on account of their size.

North America has not yet been peopled from Europe so long, by two hundred years, as the Romans were in possession of the island of Britain. Now, what has not America effected in enterprise, during this time? And although her advantages are superior to those of the Romans, when they held England as a province, yet we are not to suppose they were idle, especially when their character, at that time, was a martial and a maritime one. In this character, therefore, were they not exactly fitted to make discoveries about in the northern and western parts of the Atlantic, and may, therefore, have found America; made partial settlements in various places; coasted along down the shores of this

country, found the mouth of the Mississippi, and thence up that stream, making here and there a settlement? This supposition is as natural, and as possible for the Romans to have done, as that Hudson should find the mouth of the North river, and explore it as far north as to where the city of Albany is now standing. It was equally in their power to have found this coast by chance, as the Scandinavians in the year 1000, or thereabouts, who made a settlement at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. But more of this

in due time.

To show that the Romans did actually go on voyages of discovery, while in possession of Britain, we quote from the history of England, that when Julius Agricola was governor of South Britain, he sailed quite round it, and ascertained it to be an island.

This was about one hundred years after their first subduing the country, or fifty-two years after Christ.

But they may have had a knowledge of the existence of America, prior to their invasion of Britain. And lest the reader may be alarmed at such a position, we hasten to show in what manner they might have obtained it, by relating a late discovery of a planter in South America.

"In the month of December, 1827, a planter discovered in a field, a short distance from Mont-Video, a sort of tomb-stone, upon which strange, and to him unknown, signs or characters were engraved. He caused this stone, which covered a small excavation, formed with masonry, to be raised; when he found two exceedingly ancient swords, a helmet and shield, which had suffered much from rust; also, an earthen vessel of large capacity."

The planter caused the swords, the helmet and earthen amphora, together with the stone slab, which covered the whole, to be removed to Mont-Video, where, in spite of the effect of time, Greek words were easily made out, which, when translated, read as follows:-"During the dominion of Alexander, the son of Philip, king of Macedon, in the sixty-third Olympiad, Ptolemaios"-it was impossible to decipher the rest, on account of the ravages of time on the engraving of the stone.

On the handle of one of the swords was the portrait of a man, supposed to be Alexander the Great. On the helmet there is sculptured work, that must have been executed by the most exqui

site skill, representing Achilles dragging the corpse of Hector round the walls of Troy; an account of which is familiar to every classic scholar.

This discovery was similar to the Fabula Heica, the bas-relief stucco, found in the ruins of the Via Appia, at Fratachio, in Spain, belonging to the princess of Colona, which represented all the principal scenes in the Iliad and Odyssey.

From this it is quite clear, says the editor of the Cabinet of Instruction and Literature, from which we have extracted this account, vol. 3, p. 99, that the discovery of this monumental altar is proof that a cotemporary of Aristotle, one of the Greek philosophers, has dug up the soil of Brazil and La Plata, in South America.

It is conjectured that this Ptolemaios, mentioned on the stone, was the commander of Alexander's fleet, which is supposed to have been overtaken by a storm at sea, in the great ocean, (the Atlantic) as the ancients called it, and were driven on to the coast of Brazil, or the South American coast, where they doubtless erected the above mentioned monument, to preserve the memory of the voyage to so distant a country; and that it might not be lost to the world, if any in after ages might chance to find it, as at last it was permitted to be, in the progress of events.

The above conjecture, however, that Ptolemaios, a name found engraved on the stone slab which covered the mason work, as before mentioned, was one of Alexander's admirals, is not well founded, as there is no mention of such an admiral in the employ of that emperor, found on the page of the history of those

times.

But the names of Nearchus and Onesicritus are mentioned, as being admirals of the fleets of Alexander the Great; and the name of Pytheas, who lived at the same time, is mentioned, as being a Greek philosopher, geographer and astronomer, as well as a voyager, if not an admiral, as he made several voyages into the great Atlantic ocean; which are mentioned by Eratosthenes, a Greek philosopher, mathematician and historian, who flourished two hundred years before Christ.

Strabo, a celebrated geographer and voyager, who lived about the time of the commencement of the Christian era, speaks of the voyages of Pytheas, by way of admission, and says that his know

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