Antiquities of iSleiv- York. 23 1 



there, but it is, in all probability, of a much more modern date 

 than the one at Oxford. 



In the town of Ridgeway, in Genessee county, there have been 

 discovered several ancient fortifications and burying-places. 

 About six miles from the Ridge road, and south of the ]great 

 slope or mountain ridge, an old burying ground has been disco- 

 vered within two or three months, in which are deposited bones 

 of an unusual length and size. Over this ground lay the trunk 

 of a chesnut tree, apparently four feet through at the stump ; the 

 top and limbs of this tree had entirely mouldered away by age. 

 The bones lay across each other in a promiscuous manner ; from 

 which circumstance, and the appearance of a fort in the neigh- 

 bourhood, it is supposed that they were deposited there by their 

 conquerors ; and from the fort being situated in a swamp, it is 

 believed it was the last resort of the vanquished, and probably 

 the swamp was under water at the time. 



There are extensive clearings in the Indian reservation at 

 Buffalo, of which the Senecas can give no account. Their prin- 

 cipal settlements were at a great distance to the east, until the 

 sale of the greater part of their country since the conclusion of 

 the revolutionary war. 



On the south side of lake Erie, there is a series of old for- 

 tifications, running from the Catteragus creek to the Pennsylva- 

 nia line, a distance of fifty miles ; some are two, three, and four 

 miles apart, and some within half a mile. Some contain five 

 acres. The walls, or breastworks, are of earth ; and they are ge- 

 nerally on ground where there are appearances of creeks having 

 once emptied into the lakes, or where there was once a bay ; so 

 that it is inferred that these works were once on the margin of 

 lake Erie, which has now retreated from two to five miles nor- 

 therly. Still further south, there is said to be another chain of 

 forts running parallel with the former, and about the same dis- 

 tance from them as those are from the lake. The country here 

 exhibits two different tables or sections of bottom, intervale, or 

 alluvial land ; the one nearest the lake being the lower, and, if I 

 may so denominate it, the secondary table land : the primary or 

 more elevated tabic land is bounded on the south by hills and 



