Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/421

Rh They lived in commodious bark-covered houses, cultivated extensive maize fields, and had encircled their chief town with a triple row of tree trunks, planted as palisades, and thus making it a fortress of great strength. When Champlain, nearly sixty years later, ascended the river for the purpose of founding near it a French colony, this "kingdom," with all its subject towns, had disappeared. "A few wandering Algonkins occupied, but hardly pretended to possess, the country which had been the seat of this lost empire." Its destruction has been generally ascribed to the attacks of these Algonkins. Mr. Hale's inquiries proved conclusively that this supposition was an error. The Huron traditions showed that in times long prior to Cartier's visit the Huron and Iroquois nations, speaking similar dialects, or perhaps the same dialect, had dwelt in unity near together along the St. Lawrence; that at length a rupture, of which the occasion and circumstances are minutely remembered, took place, followed by a desperate conflict; that this conflict caused at first the retreat of the Iroquois people to the region which is now northern New York; and, finally, after along-protracted warfare, resulted in the defeat of the Hurons and their expulsion from their former seats. The Algonkins, instead of being their enemies, were their friends and allies, and still remained, when Champlain arrived, the bitter enemies of the Iroquois.

This outline of Mr. Hale's scientific work may be properly concluded by an extract from a brief sketch of his life, which appeared in the Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography: "He contributed to periodicals in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, on scientific and literary topics, and has taken particular interest in educational matters. Through his efforts the Clinton High School and the Clinton Mechanics' Institute and Library Association were established, and he was for many years chairman of the High School Board and President of the Institute. While holding these positions he gave much time to correspondence and interviews with the Ontario authorities, and to the circulation of petitions to the Legislature, which resulted in largely increased public grants to the high schools and mechanics' institutes throughout the province, and in legislation which greatly enhanced their efficiency. One important result of the legislation thus promoted by Mr. Hale, it may be mentioned, was to secure the admission of female pupils into the high schools, on the same terms and with the same advantages which were allowed to male pupils—a privilege which had previously been denied to them. Mr. Hale has also taken part in various public enterprises, and, in especial, was chairman of the committee which secured the means for the construction of the London, Huron, and Bruce Railway—a successful work, which has added largely to the