We cannot realize in the slightest degree the great interest that will be felt in our historical beginnings one, two, and three centuries from now, as our nation grows richer and hundreds give themselves up to the study of the past where ten can do so today. It is fair to believe that we cannot realize how precious every relic and every accurate piece of information--every monument and tablet--will seem when at last the days of Braddock and Johnson, Washington and Clark and Wayne are lost in three hundred years of change and evolution. Therefore we cannot fully realize the precious duty that falls upon the present generation--and upon us particularly. The reason is evident: within a generation there will not be left in our land a single son of one of the genuine pioneers of, for instance, New York or Ohio. Even those of the second generation remember with really little distinctness and accuracy the days of which their fathers told; often their stories are entirely unreliable. This very fact is in itself alarming, and is it not then the duty of all interested persons to secure immediately every item of information from such of that second generation as are found to be accurate and clear? In every State there are a hundred historic sites for which, in time, people generally will be inquiring. We speak easily of Fort Necessity and Fort Bull and Fort Laurens--but where are they? The sites of these historic embankments are known today, but of the New York and Pennsylvania sites doubts are beginning to pass current. The location of Fort Laurens--the first American fort built west of the Ohio River--is pretty definitely known. It is fair to say that in a generation or two the spots, if left unmarked, will never be located correctly. A small stone, with a plain legend, costing a mere trifle, would insure the future against such a misfortune. The subject of portage paths naturally suggests the matter of locating historic sites and marking them for the reason that so many such points were on these portages. A mere catalogue of the forts mentioned in preceding pages prove this conclusively. Add to these the mission houses, trading stations and treaty houses here erected and we have a sum total of vitally important historic sites which could be equalled only by looking to the river valleys. And very frequently indeed the real significance of many a fort at a river's mouth lay in the fact that at that river's head lay a strategic carrying place. What else did Fort Defiance, Fort Venango, Fort Oswego, Fort Niagara, Fort Miami on the St. Joseph mean?