1894.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA 317 



little cave. It was perfectly dry with fine dust in the bottom. The 

 moss would blaze when touched with a match. In the central pen 

 the conditions were entirely different. The excavation sunk by the 

 farmers permitted water to penetrate entirely over 15x20 feet of the 

 base of the mound. 



" As the main trench was continued we noticed several small ash 

 pits and patches of dark and also burnt earth. In these were ashes, 

 pottery fragments, animal bones, mussel shells and flint chips. This 

 village site refuse was not considerable. 



" Below the upper portion different colors in the mound showed 

 plainly the 'dumps' which contained from a peck to a third of a 

 bushel each. They clearly showed the mound to have been con- 

 structed entirely by manual labor, and that about as much earth as 

 could be conveniently carried by one person w-as deposited in each 

 load. The drawing B shows the section, three by six feet, which 

 has been carefully ' scalped' and smoothed to bring out the shades. 



" The trench at this point was about forty-five or fifty feet in width 

 and was level throughout. The last three or four feet taken out by 

 the teams were removed from the center, and when the shovellers 

 began, the trench dipped from either end to the center. In working 

 to the original base line a large bed of ashes was uncovered. The 

 log pen itself extended 12 feet east and w-est to 15 feet north and 

 south. The statement of the original excavators we can hardly 

 verify. It appears that the pen was composed of smaller logs than 

 they state. Two large logs have left a broad, thick strip of decayed 

 wood on the narrowest side of the pen. One corner of the pen ran 

 over into the ash pit. The logs at the southeast corner seem to have 

 been somewhat larger than the others, and were badly decayed, but 

 we managed to dig around them and bring them into relief Drawing 

 C shows the pen as far as we w ere able to trace it. 



"There were here and there fragments of I'ed pottery. About one 

 foot below the remains of the logs were original yellow clay and 

 shale clay the natural hill soil. The decayed logs and the reddish 

 earth resulting from their decay would fill four or five barrels. 

 This will give an idea of the bulk which they originally represented. 

 It was our opinion from the excavation that most of the logs were 

 saplings, and that the pen was not as large as claimed by the origi- 

 nal explorers. While as large north and east it certainly was not 

 more than four feet high. 



