"The appendix to the second volume of Proud's History of Pennsylvania contains the journals of Frederick Christian Post, who was sent by Governor Denny, in 1758, to make a treaty with the Alleghany Indians; and in delivering the governor's answer to the chiefs, on his second visit in the same year, after proposing to them to unite in a treaty of peace which had lately been concluded with the Indians at Easton, and producing sundry belts, one of which was marked with figures representing the English and the Indians delivering the peace-belt to one of the commissioners, he proceeds to say: 'Brethren on the Ohio, if you take the belts we just now gave you, as we do not doubt you will, then by _this belt_'--producing another and using their figurative style of speech--'I make a road for you, and invite you to come to Philadelphia, to your first old council-fire, which we rekindle up again, and remove disputes, and renew the first old treaties of friendship. This is a clear and open road for you; therefore, fear nothing, and come to us with as many as can be of the Delawares, Shawanese, or the Six Nations; we will be glad to see you; we desire all tribes and nations of Indians who are in alliance with you may come.' Whereupon a large white belt, with the figure of a man at each end and streaks of black representing the road from the Ohio to Philadelphia, was then given to them."[99] Lafitau, whose statements are considered unusually trustworthy, as they were based chiefly on personal observation of the Indian tribes of Canada, gives the following very instructive account of the mnemonic use of wampum: "All affairs are conducted by means of branches [strings] and necklaces [belts] of porcelain [wampum] which with them take the place of compacts, written agreements, and contracts. * * * The shell, which is used for affairs of state, is worked into little cylinders of a quarter of an inch in length and large in proportion. They are distributed in two ways, in strings and in belts. The strings are composed of cylinders threaded without order one after another, like the beads of a rosary; the beads are usually quite white, and are used for affairs of little consequence, or as a preparation for other more considerable presents.[100] "The belts are large bands, in which little white and purple cylinders are disposed in rows, and tied down with small thongs of leather, which makes a very neat fabric. The length and size and color are proportioned to the importance of the affair. The usual belts are of eleven rows of a hundred and eighty beads each.