5 88 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dawned upon the mind of some bright Lenape" then, he could have 

 gathered, as the antiquities of his own country, objects bearing 

 the same relationship to him that his own axe and arrows do to 



Fig. 3. Etched Steatite Gorget from Pennsylvania. 



us. The Indian of 1600 was, at least in some respects, the degen- 

 erate descendant of the aborigine of a. d. 1000, or later. 



If, then, it may be asked, the Delaware Indians produced, in 

 prehistoric times, objects exhibiting a more advanced culture 

 than did their descendants in historic times or just preceding 

 them, where are such objects now ? Has tangible evidence of this 

 assertion been produced ? In the Delaware Valley I think it has. 

 There have occasionally been found in single graves, or lying in or 

 on the ground, unassociated articles, clearly of Indian origin, and 



Fig. 4. Stone Gorget. Delaware Indian. 



yet not similar to the ordinary " finds " characteristic'of Indian vil- 

 lage sites. For instance, there have been burial-places examined 

 in this river valley, from which scores of skeletons have been taken, 

 and with them only the most commonplace objects were found, 



