74 



FOSSIL MEN. 



closure or fort about one hundred and twenty yards, 

 and for each side of the square in the centre about 

 thirty yards. This corresponds with the space occu- 

 pied by the remains above referred to. It is to be 

 understood, however, that the fort or city, which was 

 quite similar to those occupied by most of the agricul- 

 tural American tribes, was intended merely to accom- 

 modate the whole population in times of danger or 

 in the severity of winter, and to contain their winter 

 supplies of provisions ; but that in summer the people 

 would be much scattered in temporary cabins or wig- 

 wams in the fields, or along the rivers and streams. 



Further, according to the description of the old 

 navigator, the town was four or five miles distant 

 from the place where Cartier landed, and nearer the 

 mountain than the river, and the oak-forest and the 

 cornfields which surrounded it must have been on 

 the terrace of Post-pliocene sand now occupied by the 

 upper streets of the modern city, and about one hun- 

 dred feet above the river. If the village was destroyed 

 by fire before 1603, the date of Champlain's visit, no 

 trace of it might remain in 1642, when the present 

 city was founded, and the ground it occupied would 

 probably be overgrown with shrubs and young trees. 

 I have seen clearings in the American woods covered 

 with tall young trees in less than thirty years. But 

 the Indian tradition would preserve the memory of 

 the place ; and if, as the narrative of the Jesuits in- 

 forms us, the point of view to which Maisonneuve and 

 his French colonists of 1642 were conducted by the 



