among the Huron Indians. 25 



lu all their dying processes the Hurons avoid bringing 

 iron into contact with tlicir materials, and use vessels of 

 polished copper. 



tSkefches of Ihe Tete de Boule Indians, 

 River iSt. Mamnce, by J. Adams, Esq. 



Any information relating to the primitive manners and 

 pursuits of the aborigines of this country, wliicii are now 

 fast giving way before the strides of civilization, must in 

 pome degree be interesting to the society which I have the 

 honor of addressing ; and however incomplete and partial 

 those notices, which the brief opportunities of a very hurried 

 progress through the tract to be spoken of, alone permitted 

 ine to make, particularly as another and paramount duty 

 necessarily occupied nearly the whole of my attention. — 

 Still, I consider that in some degree, the few scanty facts, 

 which chance or encpiiry threw before me, will not prove 

 unacceptable; especially as the race to which they apply 

 is now nearly extinct, as a nation, and what yet remains 

 of their habits*, is fast fading away into that obscurity A\hich 

 has excluded the histories of many early people from the 

 book of record, and thereby ileprived philosophy of the 

 means of tracing the moral progress of man from his savage 

 infancy, through the peritJil'^ of improvement, maturity 

 and decline, to the la^t melancholy stati' of ciiii-iinitnali d 

 bucial decay. 



Such, ill m far as relates to tlie earliest portion of their 



history, hu^ been the faie of Cireece and Koine, not to ascend 



o 



