410 oN SOME ANCIENT MOUNDS OF THE BAY OF QUINTE. 
no doubt throw some additional light upon the archeology of the 
continent, such ruins containing the evidences of general customs and 
common arts among the distant tribes. 
Embankments of earth styled “Indian Forts,’ and which are per- 
haps the ruins of the palisaded encampments the Hurons dwelt im, 
are said to be met with in the Townships of Beverley, Vaughan, 
Whitchurch, and the country about Lake Simcoe. The same tracts 
of country abound in tumuli, bone heaps, deposits of warlike stores,* 
and other evidences of savage life; but the lapse of more than two 
centuries since the dispersion of the Huron race, their probable builders, 
by the Iroquois tribes, has made great havoc among their perishable 
contents. Some of these works, especially the palisaded enclosures, 
have been mentioned with more or less particularity by the early 
writers upon this country; but we may search in vain the records of 
that period for any allusion to certain other antiquities, and which 
are now objects of greater interest than the works described by them 
as appertaining to the savages they encountered. It is difficult to 
reconcile this omission with the general character of the writings of 
that era, for, in some parts, the traces of a more ancient race must 
have formed prominent features in the landscape of the country, 
passed and re-passed, on their way to and from the Far West, by ex- 
plorers and missionaries, among whom were many close observers of 
Indian character. 
Perhaps the omission may be accounted for upon the hypothesis 
that the race who erected the works, passed over unobserved, had been 
exterminated at a period so remote, that those whom the early travel- 
leres encountered possessed no tradition that would lead them to the 
discovery of existing ruins. In this category I place the mounds of 
the Bay of Quinté—the immediate subject of this paper—and which, 
though locally known for the last fifty years as artificial works, have 
not heretofore been mentioned in connection with the archzeology of 
this Province. The similarity which the mounds occurring upon the 
shores of the Bay of Quinté bear to the barrows or tumuli described 
by American Antiquarians, and incidentally mentioned by other 
* We were shewn, yesterday, a small bagful of Indian arrow heads, brought from Beaver- 
ton by Mr. Henry White. We understand that there are several cart loads in the place 
from which these were taken. They are all well shaped, and must evidently have been 
stored away in this place, af some remote period, for future use. Mr. White intends pre- 
senting the bagful to the Museum of the University of Toronto.—Zhe Leader Newspaper, 
Toronto, 10th July, 1860. 
