SPECK— SITE ON THE ST LAWRENCE 



the primitive eastern Algonquian period just mentioned. Coming 

 from such an early period and under physical conditions somewhat 

 similar to those surrounding the Eskimo, this hypothesis would allow 

 for a certain Eskimo similarity, which indeed is not to be overlooked 

 in other branches of ethnology, such as mythology, material life, and 

 social organization. 



LOCATION OF THE SITE 



Tadousac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, lies in a Laurentian 

 locality. At this particular place, owing evidently to the Saguenay 

 glacier, great terraces of yellow sand form the shores of the St Law- 

 rence, beginning just behind the village and extending southeast- 

 wardly along the river for at least four miles. There are several of 

 these terraces, the first by ocular estimate being about 60 feet above 

 the river, the next about 150 feet above, and in some places another 

 about 200 to 350 feet. Locally turf and trees have grown over these 

 dunes, leaving only the wind-blown face toward the stream steeply 

 exposed, and changing according to the disturbances of wind and sea. 



At Tadousac, directly within the harbor of the old village, upon 

 the first terrace (60 feet), is the site of the old Tadousac mission, 

 founded by the Jesuits in 1616. Here an extensive flat, near the old 

 chapel of the Jesuits but now occupied mostly by the Tadousac 

 hotel, shows signs of former Indian occupancy in the form of some 

 chips and implements. With these are also found iron and other 

 metal artifacts, relics of the first mission period, denoting that here 

 lived the Montagnais who gathered in such numbers annually, as we 

 learn, to attend the church rites. The lower terrace, then, may be 

 regarded as the site occupied by the Montagnais of historic, Christian 

 times. 



On the next terrace, however, in the rear of the village and 

 separated from it by a ravine some fifty feet in depth, through which 

 flows a brook, is the ancient site. Here an extensive flat, dotted with 

 a few clumps of spruce and in places showing a turf covering, though 

 most of it is exposed yellow sand, must have been fairly covered with 

 aboriginal camps, if one may judge by the distribution and quantity 

 of chips, flakes, blades, chisels, and scrapers of various kinds that are 

 to be found, in every stage of manufacture, scattered over the surface. 

 It may be presumed that originally, when the site was occupied, the 

 whole place had a turf covering, the wind in later times having blown 

 it free and rolled up some temporary dunes of a secondary sort here 

 and there on the flat. I estimated this inhabited tract to be about 

 two thousand feet back from the shore. 



[429] 



