DECEMBER 3, 1897. ] 
THE ALGONQUIAN OCCUPATION. 
The first step in acquiring a knowledge 
of the past is to seek to understand the 
present. An acquaintance with the his- 
toric peoples of a region is the best key to 
the prehistoric peoples. In the study of 
the question at issue in the Delaware valley 
correct method demands that we look first 
to known conditions for explanations of all 
doubtful phenomena. ‘The only occupants 
of this region known to us were a group of 
Indian tribes of what has come to be known 
as the Algonquian stock. The history of 
these tribes, as dimly shadowed forth by 
tradition and archeology, extends back in- 
definitely into the past. They were found 
by the whites living in villages, cultivating 
corn, navigating the waters, hunting, fishing 
‘and warring; weaving simple fabrics, prac- 
ticing the potter’s art in its most primitive 
form, and employing stone as the chief ma- 
terial for implements and weapons. They 
used metal to a very limited extent and 
employed shell, bone and wood in various 
arts. Their culture status is made clear by 
actual observation of the peoples them- 
selves, as well as by a study of the relics of 
many village sites known to have been oc- 
cupied by them. ‘The local tribes, the Leni 
Lenape, had relatives of like culture ex- 
tending along the coast from Carolina to 
Maine and from the mouth of the St. 
Lawrence to the head of the Great Lakes. 
They had neighbors of other stocks, all oc- 
cupying about the same simple level of 
neolithic culture. Researches long contin- 
ued in the whole vast territory occupied 
have developed no definite trace of other 
people or other conditions of culture. No 
one can say how long they had been here or 
whence they came, but their coming was 
doubtless long ago. Wandering bands 
pushed their way over the hills or along 
the shores and gradually took possession of 
this beautiful region. One group, known 
to us as the Delawares, occupied the Dela- 
SCIENCE. 
825 | 
ware valley, adopting it as a permanent 
home. Their dwellings were established 
along the banks of the rivers and creeks; 
they multiplied and spread, and, being an 
active and enterprising race, gradually ac- 
quired a knowledge of the resources of the 
country, and especially of the varied min- 
eral products, which were of the utmost 
importance to their welfare. On local sites 
they worked the varieties of stone avail- 
able for implements. They dug them out 
of the loose deposits of the stream beds 
and bluffs. They advanced into the hills 
and mountains, and little by little discov- 
ered the deposits of desirable rock in place, 
and quarried deeply into the bowels of the 
earth. The work of search and explora- 
tion was so thorough that nothing escaped 
them, and the archeologist looks with 
amazement on the still existing evidences 
of their energy in quarrying argillite, jasper 
and soapstone. 
The stones available to such a people in 
the earlier periods of their occupation would 
be the loose cobbles and masses of the riv- 
ers and bluffs. In the Trenton region the 
only material well fitted for flaking—the 
chief shaping process of the early days— 
was argillite, a compact slaty-looking rock 
especially plentiful in some parts of the 
glacial gravels. It follows that on and 
about the margins of the glacial terraces 
flaking at first dealt chiefly with this ma- 
terial. The beds of argillite found in place 
farther up the valley would next be utilized 
and later the flints and jaspers of the dis- 
tant uplands would be discovered and used. 
How long it was from the time of the first 
occupation to the period of complete explo- 
ration and utilization of resources thus 
outlined no one can guess. It may have 
been 500 or it may have been 5,000 years. 
During this prolonged period the work of 
shaping stoneimplements went on. The 
raw material was sought and worked up 
with a persistence and energy that might 
