THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 293 



mounds over the dead, some of which, as the Grave- 

 Creek Mound, in Virginia, seventy feet in height and 

 a thousand feet in circumference are among the 

 greatest burial tumuli in the world. The elaborate 

 subterranean sepulchral chambers of the old Peruvians 

 are well known, and are, like the graves of the Green- 

 landers and the ' ' gallery graves " of the ancient 

 Scandinavians, miniature houses furnished with the 

 utensils or weapons of the dead. 



Such differences in manner of burial might depend 

 merely on difference of circumstances, and various 

 modes might prevail among the same race. It is 

 probable that the extinct Bceotics, or Red Indians 

 of Newfoundland, were not an Algonquin people, but 

 an eastern extension of the great Chippewyan or 

 Tinne race, intermediate between the Algonquins and 

 the Esquimaux, and entering America from the north- 

 west. These people were destroyed partly by Euro- 

 pean settlers, and partly by their hereditary enemies, 

 the Micmacs of Nova Scotia. In 1827 an expedition 

 was fitted out, under the auspices of the Newfound- 

 land Government, by the explorer, McCormick, with 

 the view of ascertaining if any remnant of them 

 existed. He penetrated to the Red Indian Lake, 

 their former head- quarters, but there found nothing 

 but the ruins of their huts and their graves. The 

 interments had been of various kinds ; some were in 

 carefully-built huts of bark, others on stages or poles, 

 others under heaps of stones. The body of an un- 

 fortunate young woman, taken prisoner by the whites, 



