314 = Aboriginal Monuments and Relics of New York. 
and finally expel the warlike people which disputed with them 
the possession of the beautiful and fertile regions bordering the 
lakes; and it is not impossible that it was the pressure from this 
direction which led to that Confederation,—an anomaly in the 
history of the aborigines. Common danger, rather than a far- 
seeing policy, may be regarded as the impelling cause of the 
consolidation. 
In conclusion, I may be permitted to observe, that the ancient 
remains of Western New York, except so far as they throw light 
upon the system of defence practised by the aboriginal inhabit- 
ants, and tend to show that they were to a degree fixed and agri- 
cultural in their habits, have slight bearing upon the grand eth- 
nological and archeological questions involved in the ante-Co- 
lumbian history of the continent. The resemblances which 
they bear to the defensive structures of other rude nations, in 
various parts of the world, are the result of natural causes, an 
cannot be taken to indicate either a close or remote connection 
or dependence. ll primitive defences, being designed to resist 
common modes of attack, are essentially the same in their prin- 
ciples, and seldom differ much in their details. The aboriginal 
hunter and the semi-civilized Aztec, selected precisely similar po- 
sitions for their fortresses, and defended them upon the same gen- 
eral plan; yet it would be palpably unsafe to found conclusions 
as to the relations of the respective builders, upon the narrow 
basis of these resemblances alone. 
USE OF COPPER AND SILVER BY THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES.* 
In the paragraphs relating to St. Lawrence county, mention is 
made of a singular aboriginal deposite of burial, on the Canadian 
shore of the St. Lawrence River, near Brockville. Here we 
found a number of skeletons and a variety of relics, among whic 
* “were a number of copper implements. They were buried four- 
‘teen feet below the surface of the ground. ‘T'wo of the copper al- 
“ticles were clearly designed as spear-heads; they were pointed, 
double-edged, and originally capable of some service. One was 
a foot in length. A couple of copper kMives accompanied these, 
and also an implement which seems to have been designed. as a. 
gouge.t. Some implements entirely corresponding with the 
have been found in Isle Royal, and at other places in and around 
* Pages, 176-188, + Ancient Monuments of Mississippi Valley, p. 201. 
