62 FOSSIL MEN. 



worked by the present Indian tribes of the country 

 is evident, that some of them are of great antiquity is 

 proved by the silt and vegetable soil with which they 

 are filled, the former sometimes containing skeletons 

 of wild animals, which have fallen into these old 

 excavations, and the latter being overgrown with 

 the ancient trees of a primeval forest. Further, depo- 

 sits of manufactured implements indicate that they 

 were made on the spot, and their style, especially that 

 of some knives inlaid and ornamented with native sil- 

 ver, shows that the artists were the same with those 

 who made the implements of the Mississippi mounds. 

 These people had, in short, explored all the rich 

 localities of native copper only recently re-discovered 

 by Europeans. To some extent, however, the tribes 

 that expelled the primitive miners preserved their 

 arts, for the copper of Lake Superior was known to 

 the Hochelagans and Stadaconians of the time of 

 Cartier, though possessed by these people in much 

 less abundance than by the old Alleghans. 



There is also evidence that the original supplanters 

 of the Alleghans were themselves in process of being 

 supplanted at the period of the French discovery. 

 The strange story of the Eries or Neutrals, as it has 

 been preserved by Schoolcraft, belongs to this cate- 

 gory. This people, who have given a name to one of 

 the great American lakes, held a political position at 

 the time of the French discovery which entitled them 

 to the name of the neutral nation. Occupying a fertile 

 territory south of Lake Erie, and inhabiting walled 



