plates to be buried at the mouths of all the rivers in the Central West. Two plates were buried in what we now call the Allegheny river and one at the mouths of Wheeling creek, the Muskingum, Great Kanawha, and Miami rivers. At the burial of each plate a given formality was observed. The detachment was drawn up in battle array. The leader cried in a loud voice "Vive le Roi," and proclaimed that possession was taken in the name of the king. In each instance, the Arms of the King, stamped upon a sheet of tin, were affixed to the nearest tree, and a Procès Verbal was drawn up and signed by the officers. Each plate bore the following inscription:
"In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis XV., King of France, We, Céloron, commander of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis de la Galissonière, Governor General of New France, to reëstablish tranquillity in some Indian villages of these cantons, have buried [here a space was left for the date and place of burial] this plate of lead near the river Ohio otherwise Belle Rivière, as a monument of the renewal
