So it becomes an interesting and instructive thought, as we travel along the regraded thoroughfare, or race over its surface in a roaring train of cars, that beneath its hard, asphalted surface, below the remains of its macadamized predecessor, perhaps under the corduroy logs of an earlier cartway, there may yet be traces of the beaten surface of the narrow footway, hardened by the soft footfalls of the moccasined feet of the Mahican during centuries of travel, long before civilization burst its bounds in overcrowded Europe and set forth to seize the home-land of the Indian.

The origin of the path is lost in the haze of uncertainty regarding the anterior history of the American Indian . The length of time during which the region of the Greater City was occupied by the race is indicated

AND MONOGRAPHS

INDIAN PATHS

only faintly by the extent of their deposits of waste materials and the archaic character of a few stone tools. But we may reasonably assume that hundreds of years of usage had developed the woodland trail into the beaten pathway. And we may well imagine that even those dimly distant travelers were but the successors of the wild animals whose tracks through the woodlands, across watercourses, and especially those directed to sources of fresh water, the pioneer red men had used and developed. The woodland growth along the Indian path was doubtless cleared to suit the native habit of bearing burdens across the back. Thus the red men of all times transported their loads of game or merchandise, and the women carried their children or bore the household goods of skins and earthen pots. We can suppose therefore, that the trail was cleared only so far as to cut away the underbrush waisthigh, wide enough to pass a load or a package projecting beyond its bearer's shoulders, while the path itself was but a couple of hand-spans wide.