46 FOSSIL MEN. 



north of the St. Lawrence, nor was it precisely like 

 that of the Iroquois or Hurons, but a separate dia- 

 lect resembling these in many leading words. On 

 the other hand, the early French explorers regarded 

 all the St. Lawrence tribes except the Hurons as of 

 Algonquin race. In Cartier's time and subsequently 

 the Iroquois and Hurons were hostile to Hochelaga, 

 while the Algonquins seem to have been allies, and 

 Hochelaga seems to have enjoyed a political headship 

 over the St. Lawrence tribes to the eastward and 

 northward. Lastly, Hochelaga was finally destroyed 

 by the Hurons, and the survivors, if we are to believe 

 their tale, had identified themselves with Algonquin 

 tribes on the Ottawa. 



The solution of the difficulty is that the Hoche- 

 lagans were not precisely either of the Iroquois, 

 Huron, or Algonquin stock, but a remnant of an 

 ancient and decaying nation to which the Eries and 

 some other tribes also belonged, and which had 

 historical relations originally with the now extinct 

 Alleghans, or mound-builders of the Ohio and Mis- 

 sissippi rivers, and latterly with the Iroquois and 

 Hurons, but which at the epoch of the French dis- 

 covery was on the point of extinction, hemmed in 

 between the aggressive Iroquois nations in the south, 

 and the barbarous Algonquins in the north, and 

 holding the stronghold of Hochelaga as one of its 

 last fortresses on the St. Lawrence. Before the 

 French colonisation of the St. Lawrence valley these 

 people had disappeared, and the Algonquins had re- 



