Page:A Topographical Description of the State of Ohio, Indiana Territory, and Louisiana.djvu/24

18 built in a handsome style. The form in which the town is built, adds much to its elegance, and the gentle rising of the city ground back from the Ohio, affords an extended and delightful prospect of the rivers and distant hills, which is greatly heightened and enlivened by the shipping and various kinds of water craft floating on the streams. A part of the town is built on the opposite side of the Muskingum, and the houses not inferior in elegance to those on the city ground.

Marietta is the seat of justice for the county of Washington, and has a court-house and jail. There are two religious societies ; the largest is Congregational, who have erected a handsome meeting-house. It has an academy, which is also improved as a house for public worship.

Within the area of the ground laid out for a city, at the northeast part of it, are a number of the ancient works so frequently found in the western country. They consist principally of two large oblong squares and an elevated mound, in the form of a cone. The largest square contains forty acres, and the smallest twenty. They are enclosed by walls or ramparts of earth, without any ditches, from six to ten feet in height, and about thirty feet in breadth at the base, with twelve openings, or gate-ways, at regular distances from each other. From one of the angles of the largest square