ON SOME ANCIENT MOUNDS ON THE BAY OF QUINTE. 413 
surrounding country, to carry their material from a distance, but to 
obtain the usual covering of mould for the pair of mounds last men- 
tioned they have bared the smooth underlying rock of its scanty soil, 
in a well defined circle about the works. 
The use of broken gneiss for a building material, to the almost 
entire exclusion of limestone, is a noticeable feature in the construc- 
tion of these works, and it is the more remarkable when it is known 
that the latter could have been procured at much less labour from the 
immediate Bay shore, where it abounds in the form of debris. This 
circumstance may perhaps show the migration of the race, and with 
other characteristics assist in unveiling the customs and philosophy, 
or superstition, which obtained among them. 
From the limited data before us, it would be impossible to determine 
the positive age of these mounds, but the usual evidences of the 
antiquity of such works are not wanting here, and will enable us to 
arrive at a proximate period. The growth of the largest sized forest 
trees upon the tops of them, (in one instance an oak stump eight 
feet in circumference, and now seen in a decaying state), place the 
date of their erection several centuries anterior to the first exploration 
of the country. It may also be inferred that the Massassaga Indians, 
who were found by the early French Voyageurs inhabiting the Bay 
region, were ignorant of the origin of the works, for previous to 1820, 
and whilst that tribe was still numerous and pagan, they allowed the 
mounds upon their favorite camping ground to be ransacked with 
impunity. Neither have the survivors of that tribe, and who were 
removed in 1830 to Alnwick, near Rice Lake, any known tradition 
which will assist this enquiry. The Bay of Quinté, and the River 
Trent, formed parts of a well-known route tor war parties to pass to 
and from the west ; and during the French occupation of this country, 
were frequently used by soldiers, missionaries, and traders to ascend to 
the Upper Lakes; and yet the writings of that period, in many other 
particulars so precise, are silent as to rites or ceremonies among the 
neighbouring Indians, which would have required such works. We 
must therefore look for information in some other quarter, and, as yet, 
the facts collected by the various writers of the present day, are 
expressed in such general terms that we cannot arrive at any satis- 
factory conclusion. The supposition, however, that a common custom 
prevailed in very distant parts of the continent, whether in branches 
of the same tribe or among varicus races, is nO more unreasonable 
