230 The Ottawa Naturalist. [January 



Some time ago while Mr. Charles Breckenridg-e was plowing 

 on his farm at the mouth of Breckenridge's Creek, on the Quebec 

 shore of the lake, about eight miles above Aylmer, he unearthed a 

 large cache of gun-flints. He also found in the vicinity a couple 

 of stone celts and the copper handle of a kettle, The handle was 

 of rolled sheet copper and belonged to a large sized kettle. 



A very fine specimen of pipe-tomahawk was picked up by Mr. 

 Samuel Edey on his farm on the N. }4 of lot 19, 2nd concession of 

 the township of South Hull. The axe weighs i lb. i^ ozs., and 

 is one of the kind said to have been designed for presentation to 

 Indian chiefs. The flint lock of a musket was also found at the 

 same place, by Mr. Edey, but it was so badly rusted as to 

 crumble to pieces on being touched. The point at which this find 

 was made is about two miles from the lake shore to the north-east 

 of Aylmer. 



Some years ago, while a path was being cut through a gravel 

 bank in front of the summer residence of the late Col. J. S. Dennis, 

 at Kingsmere, Que., the workmen unearthed an iron tomahawk of 

 French manufacture. An old squaw, who was living in the 

 neighborhood at the time, informed Col. Dennis that according to 

 a tradition ot her people an Indian trail at one time led across the 

 mountains, by way of Kingsmere, from the waters of the Gatineau 

 River to those of Deschenes Lake. 



This is by no means an unlikely story, for on the earliest 

 recorded map of the township of Hull, several creeks of consider- 

 able size are shown as taking their rise at or near these mountains 

 and flowing southward into the lake. Many of these tributary 

 streams have shrunk in volume owing to the clearing away of the 

 forest and subseque^nt drainage of the land for farming purposes ; 

 and some of the smaller ones have disappeared altogether. Traces 

 along these watercourses of the dams ot the much prized beaver, 

 as well as the testimony of the early settlers that this district was 

 at one time teeming with game, are sufficient reasons for suppos- 

 ing that these local tributaries of the Ottawa River were frequented 

 by Indian hunters and trappers ; and as one of the largest of these 

 streams flows from the mountains, within a short distance of 

 Kingsmere, this may have been the direction taken by the trail 

 above mentioned. 



