acquired great influence over the tribe. By their customs an adopted son had all the privileges of a son by birth. When Dupuys had a sufficient number of bateaux finished, this young man went to his foster-father, and in a solemn manner related that he had dreamed, the previous night, that he was at a feast, where the guests ate and drank every thing that was set before them. He then asked the old chief to permit him to make such a feast for the tribe. The request was granted, and the feast was spread. Many Frenchmen were present, and with horns, drums, and trumpets, they kept a continual uproar. The French, in the mean while, were diligently embarking and loading their bateaux, unobserved by the feasting savages. At length the guests, who had been eating and drinking for hours, ceased gormandizing, to take some repose. The young Frenchman commenced playing upon a guitar, and in a few minutes every red man was in a profound slumber. He then joined his companions, and before morning the whole colony were far on their way toward Oswego. Late the next day the Indians stood wondering at the silence that prevailed in the dwellings of the whites, and when, at evening, having seen no signs of human fife through the day, they ventured to break open the fastened dwellings, they were greatly astonished at finding every Frenchman gone; and greater was their perplexity in divining the means by which they escaped, being entirely ignorant of their having any vessels. *
Ten years afterward another French colony settled in what now is called Pompey, about fourteen miles from Syracuse, and for three years it prospered, and many converts were made to the Catholic faith from the Onondaga tribe. A company of Spaniards, having been informed of a lake whose bottom was covered with brilliant scales like silver, arrived there, and in a short time the animosities of the respective adventurers caused them to accuse each other to the Indians of foul designs upon the tribes. The Onondagas believed both parties, and determined to rid themselves of such troublesome neighbors. Assisted by the Oneidas and Cayugas, they fell upon the colony on All-Saints' day, 1669, and every Frenchman and Spaniard was massacred. **
Evidences of much earlier visits by Europeans have been found in the vicinity, among which was a sepulchral stone that was exhumed near Pompey Hill. It was of an oblong figure, being fourteen inches long by twelve wide, and about eight inches in thickness. In the center of the surface was a figure of a tree, and a serpent climbing it; and upon each side of the tree was an inscription, as seen in the cut: "Leo X., De Viz, 1520. L. S." This inscription may be thus translated: "Leo X., by the grace of God; sixth year of his pontificate, 1520." The letters L. S. were doubtless the initials of the one to whose memory the stone was set up. The cross denoted that he was a Roman Catholic, but the meaning of the inverted U is not so clear. It has been supposed that the stone was carved on the spot by a friend of the deceased, who may have been one of several French or Spanish adventurers that found their way hither from Florida, which was discovered by the Spaniards in 1502. They were amused and excited by stories of a lake far in the north, whose bottom was lined with silver, and this was sufficient to cause them to peril every thing in searching it out. De Soto's historian speaks, in the course of his narrative of the adventures of that commander in the interior of America, of extreme cold at a place called by the natives Saquechama. It is supposed that this name and Susquehanna are synonymous appellations for the country in Central New York, and that the silver-bottomed lake was the Onondaga, the flakes and crystals of salt which cover its bottom giving it the appearance of silver. ***
* See extracts from a MS. history of Onondaga county, by Rev. J. W. Adams, of Syracuse, quoted in the Historical Collections of New York, p. 398.
** Dewitt Clinton's Memoir on the Antiquities of Western New York.
*** See Clinton's Memoir, &c.; also, Sandford's Aborigines, note on page 114. The crystals of salt on the bottom of the lake, into which the salt springs flow, were, like the scales of mica discovered on the eastern coast by Gosnold and his party, mistaken for laminæ of silver. There are not many salt springs near the surface, but under the marshes that surround Onondaga Lake, and beneath the lake itself, there seems to lie a vast salt lake, and shafts are sunken from the surface above into it. The water or brine is pumped up from these shafts or wells, and vast quantities of salt are manufactured annually in the neighborhood of Syracuse. A great number of men find employment there, and the state derives a handsome revenue from the works.
Rome.—Site of Fort Stanwix.—Forts Newport and Ball.—The Portage and Canal.—The Mohawk Valley.