SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 399 



district. It was found lying at the head of one of a group of Indian 

 graves, along with a copper kettle, and other relics ; and belongs, I 

 believe, to an interesting series of Indian relics, discovered, along with 

 sepulchral remains, in 1846 and 1847, in difFerent parts of the district 

 lying between Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe, and described by Dr. 

 E. W. Bawtree, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for July, 

 1848. In one pit, about seven miles from Penetanguishene, three 

 large couch shells were found, along with twenty-six copper kettles, a 

 pipe, a copper bracelet, a quantity of shell beads, and numerous other 

 relics. The largest of the shells, — a specimen of the pyrula spirata, 

 — weighed three pounds and a quarter, and measured fourteen inches 

 in greatest length. But a piece had been cut off this and another of 

 the large shells, probably for the manufacture of beads. It exhibited 

 abundant marks of age and frequent handling, its outer surface being 

 quite honey-combed, while the inside retained its smooth lamellated 

 surface. Another sepulchral depository, about two miles from the 

 former, yielded a large number of shell-beads of various sizes, along 

 with other relics ; a third, discovered on elevated ground in the neigh- 

 boring Township of Oro, contained twenty-six copper kettles, under- 

 neath one of which lay another of the large tropical shells, seemingly 

 carefully packed in beaver-skins and bark ; while in a fourth cemetery 

 in the same district, among copper arrow-heads, bracelets, and ear- 

 ornaments, pipes of stone and clay, beads of porcelain, red pipe-stone, 

 &c., sixteen of the same prized tropical univalves lay round the bottom 

 of the pit arranged in groups of three or four together. Numerous 

 skeletons, or detached skulls and bones promiscuously heaped together 

 along with these relics, attested the sepulchral character of the depos- 

 itory. The kettles also had been rendered useless by the blows of a 

 tomahawk, according to the invariable practice of the Indians with 

 the offerings deposited alongside of their dead. In more than one of 

 these cemeteries there were also found iron axes and other relics 

 which sufficed to fix the date of some, at least, of the interments sub- 

 sequent to intercourse having been established between the Indians of 

 this district and Europeans. More recently, in 1 856, an extensive Indian 

 cemetery was disturbed in the same locality, and found to correspond 

 very closely to those already described. About six miles from Orillia, 

 where the North River crosses the Coldwater road, which is on the 

 line of the old portage between Lake Couchiching and the Georgian 

 Bay, it rung through a valley with low heights rising on either side. 



