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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



1 With George Jimerson, the land in the vicinity of Round 

 pond, Cattaraugus Reservation. 



2 With Job Skellie, the circular formation known as the Old 

 Indian fort, lying in lot 59, Mina township, Chautauqua county. 



3 With Mrs Bertha Smith, the Indian burial ground lying west 

 of the Cattaraugus Reservation road in plot 117, U. S. Census 

 Survey, 1890. 



4 With Maria S. Jimerson and Annie Snow, the earthwork com- 

 monly known as the Burning Spring Indian fort situated on Big 

 Indian creek near its junction with Cattaraugus creek in the 

 Cattaraugus Indian Reservation. 



With these leases effected, survey and excavation was begun by 

 Mr Parker in the last named, who has reported the results of his 

 work as follows: 



Burning Spring Indian fort. This earthwork is situated on the 

 point of a ridge jutting out from the superior terrace on the south- 

 east side of Cattaraugus creek near the mouth of Big Indian creek. 



The earth wall that forms the breastworks of the fort was locally 

 supposed to be beyond the power of the Indians to erect and hence 

 was credited, for no other apparent reason, to the French and 

 the place has long been called the Old French fort. Burning spring 

 is found at the foot of the hill upon which the fort is erected 

 and takes its name from the gas that bubbles from the rocks beneath 

 the water at the base of Burning Spring falls, a stone's throw 

 from the mouth of Big Indian creek. 



The fort proper embraces an area of about 1 acre. The site 

 is admirably adapted by its surroundings for a fortified refuge, 

 the swift Cattaraugus on the north preventing access from that 

 direction and the high, almost perpendicular slate cliffs of Big 

 Indian creek on the west forming an effective barrier there. The 

 eastern hillside is less steep but is protected by a series of trenches 

 sheltered by walls of earth dug into the hill at intervals from top 

 to bottom. These outposts are found at all easily accessible parts 

 of the bank. They were probably intended as vantage places 

 from which the enemy could be fought and driven down the slope. 

 A close examination of these walls and trenches leads to the impres- 

 sion that some of them may have been still further protected and 

 concealed by log roofs covered with soil and plants, making arti- 

 ficial caves suitable for places of refuge in times of emergency. 

 That these walls and trenches are artificial is shown by the fact 

 that potsherds, fire-broken stones, chipped flint and stone imple- 



