REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR igi2 49 



active energy ; ambitious, resourceful, with an eye to the main 

 chance — in short, in industrial affairs what the Mohawk was in 

 war. They were inventive, with a decided instinct for art, 

 shown in the decorative effects produced in the manufacture of 

 their weapons and utensils. In their manipulation of stone, they 

 were not satisfied with mere utility. They made an arrow or 

 spear head an object of beauty to the eye, and manifested an 

 accurate taste in the smoothness and symmetry of their pestles 

 when any roughly-dressed stone would have served as well in 

 a practical way. They were makers of pottery, small and large 

 vessels of mingled clay and finely pounded stone, fire-baked and 

 elaborately decorated, though in common with those preceding 

 and following them, they were wholly ignorant of metallurgy. 



Beginning at the oft-occupied settlement on the north bank 

 of the Hudson river at the Big bend, we w^ill endeavor to trace 

 the lines of their residence to the northward to Glen lake, thence 

 eastward into AVashington county. Here at the rifts of the 

 Hudson are found in the lower layers of soil, quantities of their 

 pottery, celts, knives etc., while all to the north and northwest 

 along Clendon brook and Meadow run, are yearly ploughed up 

 their cylindrical pestles with an occasional mortar. Axes, 

 knives, arrowheads and pottery are found in remarkable quan- 

 tities. At the southern end of Glen lake, on the plateau where 

 the Glen Lake hotel now stands, was a considerable village 

 stretching thence to the elevated lands on the opposite bank of 

 Meadow run, where that stream enters the lake. Following the 

 western shore of the lake in our survey, we find few traces till 

 we reach the outlet at Butternut flats. Here, on both banks oi 

 the creek, which at this point are much elevated, seems to have 

 been an established town, with ofi^shoots in various directions, 

 first to the westward on the small brook near the Halfway house 

 on the highway to Lake George. Then another northwestward, 

 tucked for comfort up under the protection of French mountain, 

 where a cold stream comes down from between the two spurs. 

 Here the writer picked up, among various other objects, an 

 arrowhead of pure transparent quartz crystal. These sites are 

 identified by the fragments of early pottery which they yield. 

 From Glen lake eastward the line of these old habitations follows 

 the stream at intervals through to the Washington county line. 

 Tradition refers to a stone-fortified village at Sanford's bridge, 

 near Halfway brook, which, if tradition is correct, was evidently 



