3 
enormous number of specimens of human handiwork collected at this 
place, and the large amount of soil that was carefully dug over and 
examined. 
Several pine stumps still remained on the site in 1912, one of them, 
2^ feet in diameter, on refuse deposit 3, but none was over 3 feet in 
diameter, and they were all too much decayed to admit of ascertaining 
their age by counting the rings of annual growth. Guest (page 272) refers 
to a stump 44 feet in diameter, which stood on a crescent-shaped embank- 
ment at the west of the site. 
PHYSIOGRAPHIC FEATURES, TIMBER, ETC. 
The rocks of the region, which belong to the Ordovician system, 
outcrop within \ mile west and 3 miles east of the site. The land is gently 
undulating. 
Indian creek, winding through the marshy lands on the south, passes 
within a hundred feet of the Roebuck site and, about a mile to the southeast, 
empties into Nation river, a tributary of the Ottawa, although the site is 
within 8 miles of the St. Lawrence. According to Mr. George Drummond, 
a life-long resident in the neighbourhood, the creek was once navigable for 
canoes, but it is now considerably reduced in size and its course has been 
diverted within the memory of people living. The rising of the water of 
the Nation, caused by the building of the dam at Spencerville, has resulted 
in the mouth of the creek being choked with water weeds, and farther up, 
near the Roebuck site, its course lies through thickets of cedar, alder, and 
wallow, A small stream, a feeder of Indian creek, having its source in one 
of several small springs in the bordering swamp, flows from the northwest 
along the northeast and east sides of the site. Before the land was cleared 
this swamp may have been deeper or even open water, and in any event 
would have protected the site, leaving at the northwest only a neck of dry 
land that would afford easy access to the village. This was probably a 
factor that weighed with the Indians in their choice of the location. 
Perennial springs of pure water occur at the edge of the swamp, and, 
although its purity may not have weighed with the Indians as it does with 
us, it made the place still more suitable as a site for a village. The spring 
below the hill, south of refuse deposit 1, is shown on the map; four others 
are not indicated, two being in the swamp north and east of the site, one 
about 25 feet southeast of Mr. Henry’s barn, where the contour of the bank 
has been changed within recent years, and another in the bank west of 
the barn. If the water in the swamp was higher when the site was occupied 
it would have covered most of these springs. 
The country was heavily wooded. The village site and part of the 
Hutton, Kelso, and Dunbar farms were covered with small pines, whereas 
the surrounding country was covered with large pines, according to the late 
Peter Drummond, one of the oldest white residents, a man born and raised 
in the neighbourhood, who remembered when it was cleared. The lands 
surrounding the site, which were covered with small pines, were probably 
the cornfields of the village. Besides pine there are red and sugar maples, 
elms, beeches, cedars, oaks, birches, poplars, spruces, and alders growing 
in the vicinity, and tamaracks in the swamp. Fruit of the choke-cherry, 
wild plum, and wild grape was also available, and sumac is common. 
