It may reasonably be assumed that every permanent village, and many seasonally-occupied camps and fishing and hunting stations, were connected by some path with other occupied places of the same tribe or chieftaincy, and these in turn were provided with access to some main thor- oughfare leading to other tribal territory, to the great rivers, to the mountain regions, or to the sea. The existence of these paths indicates their considerable utilization, since the rapid growth of vegetation in our climate soon overgrows any clearing, and even the hard trodden surface of the pathway would not long survive the action of frost and the growth of weeds, if the bare or moccasined footfalls upon its surface were infrequent.

In some localities, however, their longcontinued use must have worn their surface deeply into the ground, and some such well-used paths have left traces in otherwise unchanged regions, and have been recognized by the recent explorer. It is not by a wholly speculative process, but rather by deduction, that the course of some unrecorded Indian trails may be traced in the windings of ancient highways and their modern successors.