New yerfey, Raccoon. 403 



a piece of land, they commonly figned an agree- 

 ment 5 and though they could neither read nor 

 write, yet they fcribbled their marks, or figna- 

 tures, at the bottom of it. The father of old 

 Nils Guftafson bought a piece of ground from the 

 Indians in New jeffey. As foon as the agree- 

 ment was drawn up, and the Indians fhould fign 

 it, one of them, whofe name fignified a beaver, 

 drew a beaver; another of them drew a bow 

 and arrow ; and a third a mountain, inftead of 

 their names. Their canoes they made of thick 

 trees, which they hollowed out by fire, and 

 made them fmooth again with their hatchets, as 

 has been before mentioned. 



THE following account the old man gave me, 

 in anfwer to my queftions with regard to the 

 weather and its changes : It was his opinion, 

 that the weather had always been pretty uni- 

 form ever fince his childhood ; that there happen 

 as great ftorms at prefent as formerly ; that the 

 fummers now are fometimes hotter, fometimes 

 colder, than they were at that time ; that the win- 

 ters were often as cold and as long as formerly ; 

 and that ftill there often falls as great a quan- 

 tity of fnow as in former times. However, 

 he thought that no cold winter came up to that 

 which happened in the year 1697; and which is 

 often mentioned in the almanacks of this country; 

 and I have mentioned it in the beginning of this 

 volume. For in that winter the river Delaware 

 was fo ftrongly covered with ice, that the old man 

 brought many waggons full of hay over it, near 

 Chrijiina ; and that it was paffable in fledges even 

 lower. No cattle, as far as he could recoiled-, 



D d 2 were 



