74 CLINTON ON THE ANTIQUITIES 
from the attempts which were evidently made to render the gun-barrels 
useless by filing them, there can be little doubt but that the Europeans who 
had settled here, were defeated, and driven from the country by the Indians. 
Near the remains of this town I observed a large forest which was in 
former times cleared and under cultivation; and I drew this inference from 
the following circumstances.—There were no hillocks or small mounds, 
which are always the result of up-rooted trees—no up-rooted decaying trees 
or stumps—no underwood, and the trees were generally fifty or sixty years 
old. Many, very many years must elapse before a cultivated country is 
covered with wood. The seeds must be slowly conveyed by winds and 
birds. The town of Pompey abounds with forests of a similar character. 
Some are four miles long and two wide. And it contains a great number 
of ancient places of interment. I have heard them estimated at eighty. If 
the present white population of that country were entirely swept away, per- 
haps in the revolution of ages similar appearances would exist. 
It appears to me that there are two distinct zras in our Antiquities—one 
applicable to the remains of old fortifications and settlements which existed 
anterior to European intercourse, and the other referring to Kuropean es- 
tablishments and operations.—And as the whites as well as the Indians 
would frequently resort to the former for protection, habitation or hunting, 
they must necessarily contain many articles of European manufacture, and 
thereby much confusion has resulted by blending together distinct eras 
greatly remote in point of time. 
The French had undoubtedly large establishments in the territory of the 
‘Six Nations. A quarto volume in Latin, written by Francis Creuxius, a 
Jesuit, was published at Paris in 1664, and is entitled “ Historia Cana- 
densis seu nove Francize, Libri decein, ad annum usque Christi M.D.CLVI.” 
It states that a French colony was established in the Onondaga territory 
‘about the year 1655, and it thus describes that highly fertile and uncom- 
monly interesting country.— Ergo biduo post ingenti agmine deductus est 
ad locum Gallorum sedi atque domicilio destinatum, leucas quatuor dissitum 
a pago, ubi primum pedem fixerat. Vix quidquam a natura videre sit abso- 
