GLIMPSES OP PRE-HISTOEIC TIMES. 47 



placed them, and their former residence had become 

 an unpeopled frontier between the Iroquois and 

 Algonquins. Had Cartier visited Hochelaga a few 

 centuries earlier, he would have found it connected 

 with a great and powerful group of similar nations 

 extending to the valley of the Ohio. Had he as- 

 cended the St. Lawrence a century later, he would 

 have found no trace of such a city. 



The evidence and the historical application of this 

 result will require us to consider the ante- Columbian 

 distribution of the North American nations, and the 

 changes and movements in progress among them ; 

 and it will be the most perspicuous mode to adopt the 

 historical style for what is in regard to its evidence a 

 matter of archaeology. 



It was a tradition of one of the American tribes 

 that in old times the Indians were increasing to such 

 an extent that they were threatened with want, and 

 the Great Spirit then taught them to make war, and 

 thus to thin one another's numbers. The tradition, 

 as we shall find, embodies the historic truth that peace- 

 ful primitive nations had been overthrown by warlike 

 invaders. But without absolutely believing in this 

 mythical period of peace, there is good reason at least 

 to show that before the European discovery a series of 

 great movements and conquests had commenced and 

 was in progress. Before these movements, we learn 

 from monumental and linguistic evidence the distri- 

 bution of races marked on the little sketch-map on 

 the following page. 



