Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 7).djvu/101

 route from the St. John to the Penobscot, had been used so long that the solid rocks had been worn into furrows by the tread of moccasined feet; and Kidder quotes this and comments upon it as probably the most ancient evidence of mankind in New England. A somewhat similar statement is made by Monro as to the Misseguash–Baie Verte portage. I have seen something very similar on the old portage path around Indian Falls on the Nepisiguit, but I am inclined to think it is the hob-nailed and spiked shoes of the lumbermen which have scored these rocks, and not Indian moccasins and it is altogether likely that this explanation will apply also to the case mentioned by Gesner, whose over-enthusiastic temperament led him into exaggerated statements. In New Brunswick the lines of regular travel seem to have followed exclusively the rivers and the portage paths between their heads, and there is no evidence whatever of former extensive trails leading from one locality to another through the woods, such as are well known to have existed in Massachusetts. The difference in the distribution and navi-