ANCIENT INDIAN REMAINS. 



273 



of its having "been once thickly inhabited. The ground is strewed 

 with broken pieces of earthen ware, and hollow and smooth ])ieces of 

 stone^ doubtless used for culinary purposes. The timber, which was 

 mostly pine, is, except a small portion on the westerly part all cut 

 down, indeed the original forest is entirely gone within the enclosure 

 proper. 



It will be necessary to consult the diagram to obtain a proper idea 

 of the locality of the mounds and embankments. The tumuli are 

 four in number, situate at the corners of a parallelogram, containing 

 between one and two acres of ground, within which are to be seen the 

 regular streets and lines of a village ; outside of the mounds, on three 

 sides are double lines of circumvallation ; on the fourth side, which 

 faces the southeast side, there is but one. — (See fig. 1.) 



The elevations of ground which we have called tumuli, or mounds, 

 are at present but slightly raised above the general level — say from 

 two to four feet. On opening these they were found to be composed 

 of earth, charcoal and ashes ; and contained human bones, pointed 

 bones from the leg of the deer, horns and skulls of the same animals, 

 human skulls, and hones of the beaver, muscle shells of the genus 

 Unio, such as are now found on the shores of the St. Lawrence river, 

 and which were doubtless used as food, since they are very common 

 about such mounds. With these were great quantities of earthen- 

 ware, some of which was of the 



Fi^. 2. 



KXCAVATED STONE. 



most elaborate workmanship. 

 On the surface of the ground 

 were scattered numbers of 

 smoothed pieces of quartz and 

 sandstones. One stone or boul- 

 der of hornblendic gneiss (fig. 

 2,) was hollowed out into a 

 cavity of sixteen inches in 

 length, twelve, in breadth, 

 and four and a half inches in 

 depth; had it not been broken 

 off at one end it would probably 

 have held a gallon. 



Fio". 3. 



On the 3d of August I re- 

 visited this place'with some 

 friends, and, with the aid 

 of tw6 laborers, we exliuni 

 ed a large variety of bones, 

 bone points, broken pieces 

 of pottery, earthenware, 

 pipes, needles, and a part 

 of the tooth of a walrus^ 

 (fig. 3.) This had holes 



drilled through it as ^\^i'i ' 



though it had be.en used for ornament. 



I then proceeded to the work, previously mentioned, in Edwards- 

 burgh, near Spencerville, about half a mile west of the village, on an 

 elevated piece of ground. This is well chosen for defence — overlooking 



18 s 



