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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Mr D. S. Marvin made a day's exploration of the Perch lake 

 mounds in August 1886 in company with Messrs Carter, Wood- 

 worth and Woodard. The results he. embodied in a paper read before 

 the Jefferson County Historical Society, Mar. 15, 1887, adding 

 a few facts from the earlier explorations of Henry Woodworth and 

 J. S. Twining. The lake is a small one, part of the shores high and 

 rocky, but much more low and marshy. The mounds occur only on 

 the higher part. The outlet is 6 miles long, and mounds have been 

 reported near this. At the natural bridge, near its mouth, are exten- 

 sive camp sites with abundant bone articles and fragmentary pottery. 

 The most important part of Mr Marvin's paper is quoted here as 

 follows : 



The objects that arrest our attention and interest us the most are 

 the so called Indian mounds, observed along both shores of the lake, 

 and more or less down the outlet. They are situated upon the bluffs 

 overlooking the water, and reach back from the lake sometimes a 

 hundred rods ; they number some two hundred in all. These so 

 called mounds are all round, usually from 50 to 90 feet in circum- 

 ference ; some of them double, and so near that their edges coalesce. 

 They are elevated or raised above the summits of the hills they occupy 

 from 2 to 4 feet. Where the land has not been cleared, ordinary 

 forest trees of all ages are seen growing around and upon the 

 mounds, ranging from yearling growths to trees several hundred 

 years old. The debris usually observed about old Indian villages is 

 found buried in the soil, old bones and broken pottery ; the organic 

 remains though seem to have mainly rotted and gone to decay. The 

 broken pottery observed was of the usual patterns, but it is only 

 sparingly observed, for around some of the mounds none could be 

 found. A few of the small mounds were flat topped, but the usual 

 shape and appearance is a ring of earth, with a depressed or basin- 

 shaped center. 



In opening cross sections, or digging trenches from the outside to 

 the center of the circles, as the centers are approached, remains of 

 fires, charcoal, ashes, etc., were observed, sparingly though in the 

 case of the largest mound. There was observed no disturbance of 

 the soil below the level of the natural surface. The dirt of which 

 the mounds had been constructed, is the common country soil, none 

 of it seemingly brought from a distance, similar in character and com- 

 position to the soil of the adjacent land, made up of clay, sand and 

 small fragments of the underlying limestone, belonging to the Tren- 

 ton group, as near as I could determine from a cursory examina- 

 tion of the contained fossils, with here and there an occasional 



