3° 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



make more room the pit had been widened about 18 inches from the 

 bottom, and the smaller bones were placed in this addition. There 

 were no traces of any lining to the pit, nor any suggestions of 

 Jesuit contact, while earlier articles of European trade had reached 

 the spot, possibly from the Dutch through the Five Nations. There 

 were 24 iron axes, several brass kettles, 3 sword blades, 24 large 

 and curious brass rings, 5 cylindric brass or copper beads, with other 

 ornaments of shell. Through the kindness of Mr Mackay I exam- 

 ined a number of these. The rings are simply short brass cylinders, 

 bent in circles, and the beads are long brass tubes, precisely like 

 those occurring in the Mohawk valley. One of these is 11 inches 

 long and y& inch in diameter. Mr Mackay has an interesting collec- 

 tion, well repaying study. 



Some burial mounds have been reported in New York city, 

 apparently natural elevations used for sepulture. 



Some supposed mounds in Oneida county are also of doubtful 

 character, nothing having been determined by examination. 



In Onondaga county, near Baldwinsville, were two large stone 

 heaps, covering human bones, and two burial mounds were on the 

 west side of Onondaga outlet. One was circular and stood out 

 prominently from the bank behind it. The other was oblong, being 

 12 feet long and 3 feet high when I sketched it, and had then been 

 somewhat reduced. 



At the modern Seneca castle near Geneva, where Johnson built 

 a fort in 1756, is an artificial mound about 6 feet high and used as 

 a cemetery. It is probably rather graded than built up. There was 

 a small recent mound at Clifton Springs. 



In Carlton, Orleans county, on the north bank of Oak Orchard 

 creek, is a small oblong mound, 20 by 30 feet in diameter. Another 

 small mound was 30 rods away. 



Bone hill, at Oswego Falls, was a place of sepulture, now known 

 to be of natural formation. It was 6 rods in diameter and 40 feet 

 high, and has been removed. 



In Unadilla was a supposed Indian monument, 20 feet in diameter, 

 10 feet high, and of a conical form. There was a mound at 

 Oneonta, and a supposed burial mound at Cooperstown. 



