614 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 774 



seum in Ottawa and Laval University, Quebec. 

 There have been several occupations of the prov- 

 ince. The following are the principal kinds of 

 remains found: marine and fresh-water shell ob- 

 jects, bone awls and knives, arrow points, stone 

 knives and scrapers, stone wedges and chisels, 

 stone gouges, stone pipes, gorgets or banner stones 

 (generally made of Huronian slate), amulets (or 

 perhaps ceremonial stones), pipes of pottery of 

 many patterns, as well as vessels of pottery, the 

 last being mostly broken. Mention was made of 

 a large amulet or ceremonial stone nineteen inches 

 in length, and made of limestone, which was re- 

 cently found beneath the stump of a large oak tree 

 the cross-section of which had two hundred and 

 eighty rings of growth. The wedges, chisels and 

 gouges are of good form and finish, and are plenti- 

 ful. All these objects of manufacture have been 

 found on or near the surface of the ground. 



Ossuaries or circular bone-pits fifteen to twenty 

 feet in diameter and six to eight feet in depth 

 have been discovered near Georgian Bay and in a 

 few counties bordering upon Lake Ontario. The 

 writer of the paper referred to his work in these 

 ossuaries in 1876 and 1878 in Durham and Simcoe 

 counties. Articles of French manufacture oc- 

 curred in some of them, and the crania in all of 

 them are of the Huron form. Some ancient skulls 

 found in other parts of Ontario were described as 

 being of a very inferior type, the frontal portion 

 being extremely low and narrow, and the super- 

 numerary bones numerous. 



Primitive paintings may be seen on the faces 

 of rocks along the shores of a few of the northern 

 lakes. It is not known by what people they were 

 made. 



There are aboriginal tumuli in southeastern 

 Ontario and also in the vicinity of the Lake of 

 the Woods and Rainy River. Already some inter- 

 esting things have been obtained from them in the 

 way of pottery vessels and of copper and stone 

 implements and ornaments. Large oak trees grow 

 upon some of these mounds. One long mound in 

 eastern Ontario has been described as a " serpent " 

 mound; but, the writer by a personal examination 

 of this mound has not found satisfactory evidence 

 that it was intended to represent a serpent. It 

 bears very little resemblance to the famous serpent 

 mound of Ohio. It is, however, undoubtedly arti- 

 ficial, and it shows a relationship with certain 

 mounds of the province of Manitoba. 



The archeological remains in Manitoba may be 

 regarded as belonging to two classes, namely, 

 those objects, such as grooved stone mauls and 



hammers, stone discs, arrow points and broken 

 pottery, found upon or near the surface of the 

 ground, and, secondly, tumuli, earthen ridges and 

 house enclosures. The tumuli of earth are some- 

 times of considerable size, and often have human 

 skeletons with vessels of earthenware and imple- 

 ments and ornaments of bone, shell, stone, antler 

 and copper buried within them. The specimens 

 obtained from these mounds are usually few in 

 number. But they are very characteristic and in- 

 structive in Manitoba and vicinity. Long, wide 

 ridges of earth occur in this province, the largest 

 found being about 2,000 feet long, forty feet wide 

 and three feet high. Of the many examined by 

 the writer one such ridge in Dakota measured 

 2,688 feet in length. It is probable that these 

 earth ridges were used for ceremonial purposes. 



Two kinds of burial mounds occur, and also 

 mounds which were used as house-sites, only ob- 

 jects which were of domestic use having beca 

 found in the latter. A burial mound, which the 

 writer explored last year, has a definite structure 

 of considerable interest. A burial pit, three feet 

 and six inches in diameter and two feet deep, was 

 found a little southeast of its center. The pit 

 contained five human skeletons, one large earthen 

 pipe decorated by a groove around its bowl and 

 transverse grooves in the lower side of its hori- 

 zontal stem. Its bowl was 2i inches across and 

 3i inches high. There were also with the pipe 

 and skeletons a barbed flint arrow point, marine 

 shell (two species) beads, one polished round 

 stone the size of a very large marble, and a valve 

 of the river shell Unio containing some red ochre. 

 The burial pit extended through the soil and dowm 

 into the subsoil. Around the pit and forming a 

 circular area of about twelve feet in diameter the 

 soil consisted of a purplish solidified mass. Upo» 

 this and extending over the pit was a calcareous 

 layer from three to six inches in thickness and 

 about twelve feet in diameter. There were two 

 large stone boulders above the calcareous layer, 

 and all were covered with the rich black prairie 

 soil. Within this black soil, and about two feet 

 above the calcareous layer, was a layer of yellow 

 clay from four to six inches thick and about equal 

 in extent to that of the calcareous layer covering 

 the pit below. Usually in these mounds there is 

 a variety of objects, shell pendants and necklaces, 

 spoons, beads, bone armlets, stone pipes and pot- 

 tery vessels. The two most characteristic objects 

 buried with the human remains are small pottery 

 urns of coiled ware decorated externally by a 

 spiral furrow, and the straight, tubular, catlinite 



