122 THE HUEON RACE AND ITS HEAD-FORM. 



the shells of the Mexican gulf of which their wampum was wrought. 

 But most of the hammered copper tools found in Canada have been 

 identified by their included silver crystals, with the copper of Lake 

 Superior. 



From the large pyrul^ of the gulf the Iroquois and Hurons not 

 only made their wampum, but the largest shells were frequently carved, 

 hung with scalp-locks and other favourite decorations, and carefully 

 preserved as objects of superstitious reverence. From the same ceme- 

 teries, Dr. Tache selected upwards of eighty skulls, most of which, with 

 the accompanying relics, he deposited in the Museum of the Laval Uni- 

 versity, at Quebec* There, I have enjoyed opportunities of inspecting 

 the collection ; and, with the help of my friends, Mr. John Langton 

 and the Eev. James Douglas, minutely examined and measured some 

 of the most remarkable of the skulls. In his explorations, indeed. Dr. 

 Tache has anticipated a favourite project of Mr. Langton. An inte- 

 resting paper " On the early discoveries of the French in North 

 America," communicated by him to this Journal in 1857, specially 

 illustrates the topography of the Huron country; and he had then 

 conceived the idea of identifying the localities of the chief Huron 

 towns. The site of one of them, Ste. Marie, at the naouth of the Wye, 

 being well defined, and some of the others approximately, it seemed 

 by no means improbable that their positions could be determined 

 anew, and tested by the very process successfully adopted by Dr. 

 Tache. He has succeeded in tracing out the sites of fourteen villages, 

 on many of which remains of the houses and stockade's could still be 

 recognised. One of them he has identified as St. Ignace, where the 

 principal chief and nearly a hundred of the Iroquois warriors fell, 

 before the Hurons were overpowered, and the miserable remnant bound 

 to stakes, to perish in the flames of their blazing settlement. From 

 the mound of charcoal and ashes. Dr. Tache collected numerous pieces 

 of pottery, trinkets, and stone implements, that had lain buried in the 

 ruins of St. Ignace ever since its final destruction in 1649. More 

 recently I have obtained, from Dr. Thorburn, of Toronto, the fruits of 

 later explorations in the ossuaries of the same Huron country, includ- 

 ing eleven additional skulls. The materials thus brought under review 

 are therefore ample for the determination of some definite results as to 

 the prevailing forms of the Huron or Wyandot cranium. 



* Dr. Tache presented ten Huron skulls to the London Anthropological Society. 



