WATSON'S CROSSING. 77 



one of their people died? The appearance of this 

 "find" was certainly suggestive of such a custom. Yet 

 it was one that did not always hold good, for they are 

 known to have had extensive cemeteries, where very 

 different but no less elaborate funeral rites were ob- 

 served. 



It is useless to conjecture just when this Indian had 

 his " wattled hut " at this place. That it was many cen- 

 turies ago is probable ; the absence of articles of Euro- 

 pean manufacture is indicative of this ; but the fact that 

 it might have been less than five hundred years ago 

 does not warrant the popular notion that the Indians 

 are but recent comers to these parts. When all the ev- 

 idences of their antiquity are duly considered, it must 

 be admitted that the final migration of the Delaware 

 Indians to New Jersey occurred centuries prior to the 

 Christian era. 



Startling though the assertion may be, it is safe to 

 affirm that the Indian was preceded by an even ruder 

 people. Sift the meadow mud through your fingers, 

 and then search the underlying gravels ; for not until 

 this is done will you have read the story of the races, 

 backward, to the beginning. The occupancy by man 

 of the valley of the Delaware, and of this creek, is divis- 

 ible into three distinct periods the Indian, whom all 

 know ; the Eskimo, whom few have suspected ; and far- 

 thest back the scarcely recognized palaeolithic man, who 

 "was no more capable of making a stone arrow-head 

 than he was of building a pyramid." 



Writes a celebrated archaeologist in the North Amer- 

 ican Review : 



