276 ANCIENT INDIAN REMAINS. 



The great size of the trees, the stumps of which remain upon the 

 embankments, are, in some degree, chronological evidence of the long 

 time that has elapsed since these monuments were erected ; and the 

 fact of the bones of the walrus and shark being found, shows their 

 acquaintance and communication with the sea, while the entire ab- 

 sence of stone pipes and arrow heads of the same material, (which 

 belong comparatively to a more recent age,) as well as the entire 

 deficiency of metals, or anything European to connect them with the 

 western or southern tribes of Indians, and the significant fact that 

 no remains of this kind have been found upon the borders of the St. 

 Lawrence, but that they are aliuays situated upon terraces from one 

 hundred and twenty feet (the height of these) to two hundred feet 

 above the present level of the water, is all strong *proof of their great 

 antiquity, compared with those of a mucli lower level, in which, to 

 this day, stone pipes and copper articles are found. Further investi- 

 gation may change this view, but facts at present would seem to point 

 to a time, previous to the breaking away of the great northern bar- 

 rier, when the sea was on a level with some of the terraces of Lake 

 Ontario. 



These vestiges of a proud and once powerful race are traceable from 

 the rude earthen embankments of the North to the extended ruins of 

 Central America, and are worthy of patient and continued investiga- 

 tion, though their unwritten history may never be fully revealed. 



It is by the careful collection and preservation of facts, minute 

 though they may be in detail, that a sufficiency of data will be 

 gathered from which some future historian may do justice to the 

 memory of the earlier inhabitants of this continent, and erect a beau- 

 tifully ]3roportioned and massive ethnological structure. 



