peared from sight and human memory, the humble but indestructible debris of shell and sherd and spearhead have re-opened the book of history, and recorded in no uncertain terms the place of one-time aboriginal habitation.

And in the trodden paths that once united these recorded, recovered, or other unknown sites, the forerunners of our modern means of communication are found, a practical and permanent result of the life and the arts of the wild men.

A study of the topography of known Indian paths affords very clear indication of the reasons governing the selection of their route. Where the land lay reasonably level, the course was fairly direct, swerving only around obstacles such as rocky projections, and probably diverging to avoid heavy growths and fallen timber. The main objective being some other settlement or some neighboring native haunt, the route was directed toward the easiest crossing of streams, either at a wading place or some shallow point in a watercourse where

AND MONOGRAPH S

INDIAN PATHS

stepping-stones, except in times of flood, enabled the traveler to cross dry-foot.

The swampy tracts bordering on streams, with which the area of the city abounded, were avoided by detours to some point near the head of their water-supply, where a footway could be maintained, probably by trampling rushes under foot year after year above the soft ground, thus gradually building up a dry pathway. This is well illustrated by the course of the Shore path through the one-time village of Eastchester on its way to Pelham and the Sound shore. Here the path came over from the Williamsbridge crossing of the Bronx to the hillside overlooking the Hutchinson river, and descended to the margin of its marshy borders which afforded no practicable place of crossing. Turning, therefore, abruptly northward, the path skirted the marsh, rising in grade until it reached the line of the later Boston post-road.