mediate present if the many historic sites here are to be correctly marked. They are easy fields of investigation because as a rule a great amount of geographic lore is treasured up in a small compass; many a portage, like the Oneida portage at Rome, New York, was not over a mile in length; yet here are the sites of at least half a dozen forts, some of them of world-wide renown. Take the famous portage at Fort Wayne, Indiana, from the Maumee (St. Mary) to the Wabash (Little River); the field here is of great importance yet the ground to be covered is exceedingly limited. A few dollars invested in slight monuments could now establish markers along this route with some degree of accuracy and conscientious satisfaction. Later on this will not be possible. Each year lessens the probability of accuracy, takes from the neighborhood one and another of the aged men who would be of assistance, changes more and more the face of the landscape—in short tends to rob all future students of something of real value that we might confer upon them.
It may be due to a lack of antiquarian
