The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1894-11-22
we came back to our white banner and
started around the embankment.

started around the embankment.
1t was long and weary walk. The
wild storms that have wreaked their
wrath on this mountain summit had
left many an uprooted monarch of the
forest prone across our path.
The growth of gigantic trees on the
sides and summit Of the embankment
attested part, at least, OF the vast
stretch of lime which had passed since
their abandonment.
On the wall we noticed one stump
which we measured with stick. Hold
ing the stick and judging its length by
our own height, we found it fully six
feet. As nearly as we could approx.
mate, there were about thousand an.
nular lines or rings in this stump, each
ring representing one year OF it's living
age. Thus We know these walls can not
be less than thousand years old, and
very probably two or three times as old.
g As ,we moved around this wall, admir-
ing its location, it's formation, and won.l
dering at the stupendous work OF an age
when there could have been no steam
called to lend it's power--not even
horse-nothing but the force of human
muscle, we could not but speculate, how
many men were engaged? How many
years, how many generations did it take
them
Who were the multitudinous dead in
whose tracks we were walking? Where
did they come from and whittier did
they go? Were they part OF that race
whose earth works are traced from Rus
sia westward through Scotland and
Wales? Did some providential hand
bridge the sea and lead them over?
We're they here before the days of the
famed Atlantis Who can tell? Only
God and the disembodied spirits know.
Did they live here in these fertile val.
leys, with population far more dense
than that OF today? Did they live here
for centuries and ages-live here until
they had worked out some great divine
purpose, or until, like Sodom and Go.
morrah, they had provoked destruction,
and God Almighty sent upon them the
the savage boards, in numbers like the
locusts OF Egypt? We're they the ten
lost tribes of Israel, doomed to wander
the earth with only light enough to
know their need of light? Had they
traditions among them OF what had been
lost by their own idolatary and rebel.
lion? Was the great earth serpent, j
few miles away, built in remembrance
OF the deliverance wrought by Moses in
the Wilderness? How we would like
to know something OF this people!
But, as we look from the summit of
Fort Hill, through an occasional vista
of foliage far off in the azure distance,
beyond the beauteous foreground, we
only see the mountain tops. So, in look
ing back over the ages, we only see the
grand events, the mountain tops of his
tory. We know nothing of the life in
the valleys unseen, the fecks of sun
and shadow, the loves and sorrows, the
joys and heartaches OF the people. So,
thousand years hence, they who shall
! stand on these Notifications will know
! no more Of US, than we do OF those who
lived and fought and died on this blood
drenched summit in the dim ages of the
past. Possibly, some great mans mem
ory may family survive, a disputed and
an unauthentic myth. Perhaps some
great work may be dimly traced TO oul
century, but our individual lives, ou
home loves and the dear thoughts tha
mean SO much TO MS will be lost to th'
world then, as the winds that are roar
ing through the tree tops now.
But. these specnlations were repeated
ly interrupted - We walked and climbe'
over the loose rocks and fallen trees
along the top Of the embankment.
4 There was omnipresent queer ireal
Of insect natufe--a creature that locke
liksetvi6 q wood With ereet' lon