826 The American Naturalist. [September, 
A most efficient form of the striking-cutting weapon was the Mexi- 
can battle-axe, consisting of a handle of wood along the edges of which 
spalls of obsidian and rugged stone were set. In some instances these 
chipped blades were placed so close together and in such regular fash- 
ion as to suggest the first steps in the invention of the sabre which is a 
striking-cutting weapon. 
Some of the Siouan tribes of the Missouri River, in later days, in- 
serted heavy spikes or blades of butcher’s knives and other blood- 
curdling objects, doing their work precisely after the fashion of the 
Mexican axe. 
In the Antillian area and over nearly all of South America north of 
the parallel of Rio Janeiro, the blades of the tomahawks and battle- 
axes were exquisitely fashioned and polished.—Ortis T. Mason. 
A Triple Indian Grave in Western New York.—On Sep- 
tember 10, 1885, I opened an Indian grave which was of interest in 
many ways. In the first place, it was located near the site of Gana- 
gari, which was, for many years, the principal village of the Seneca 
nation, and for which they seem to have had an unusual degree of 
pride and affection. This village was destroyed at the approach of 
De Nonville’s invading troops in 1687, and was never rebuilt, perhaps 
from sentimental motives. This village site occupies an area of at least 
ten acres, and is still marked by burnt soil, chips of chert—brought 
from a distance—fragments of pottery and of clay pipe-stems and even 
more perfect relics. During the early days of the American village of 
Victor, the settlers depended for old iron largely upon the lost toma- 
hawks of the Indians, and quantities of French glass and wampun 
beads, of chert and brass arrow-heads and of many other relics, attest 
the richness of this Indian capital. 
During the spring of 1885, Mr. George Ketchum, residing near Vic- 
tor, plowed out a brass kettle and a few bones from the brink of a 
slight fall of land. It is at such places as this that the plow is most 
likely to detect ancient interments, the earth being gradually carried 
down hill so that after the lapse of years, the original grade has been 
so changed that the plow hooks into a skull, throws up a long bone, or 
tears out some article deposited with the skeleton. 
At my visit, it was comparatively easy to expose the remaining COn- 
tents of the grave. The bones of the skeletons were not all present, 
suggesting either that they had been disturbed by burrowing animals 
or that the interment had been made after prolonged exposure on an 
aerial scaffold as was practiced almost uniformly by many tribes, and, 
