V INLAND AND ITS RUINS. 



169 



Old Wall at Wiv.i \\ ili.ia.m 11i,m;i 



rounded by upright stones at the four corners and filled with oak 

 charcoal, but no ashes, was the distinctive feature of this ruin, 

 and resembled the cooking fireplaces of the Icelanders, The 

 absence of ashes has been accounted for by absorption in the 

 soft clay soil. Ashes 

 often disappear in 

 this way, but can be 

 detected with acids. 

 Although the out- 

 line of the walls of 

 the long house can 

 only be suggested, 

 the few stones which 

 were found at the 

 base of the old walls 

 were placed about a 

 metre and a half 

 apart, as in the walls of the Saga-time. This, so far as is known, 

 is peculiar to that period and race. Iroquois long houses were 

 constructed for communal use, and were usually from one hun- 

 dred to three hundred feet long. The chief traces left are fire 

 rows and kitchen middens. They are not known to have used 

 stone foundations, nor to have made any attempt at regularity of 

 outline. The drawing shows the method of construction of these 

 long houses, which were built only by the Indians of the Iroquois 

 tribe. 



Depressions which appeared to be the sites of old huts were 

 in the hillside back of the terrace on which the long house stood, 

 but the roadway in front had apparently destroyed all but one of 

 these, and had also carried away the front wall of this. 



This hut was four metres across the front, and may have been 

 five metres deep. When the sod, stones, and the clearings, which 

 had been thrown in from the cultivated field above, were all re- 

 moved, the remains of two side walls were found, supported and 

 protected by the upper portions of these same walls which had 

 slipped down from above and lay close to them, forming a com- 

 pact mass of earth and stones. None of the stones in this wall were 

 in contact with each other, being separated by two or three inches 

 of dark earth such as results from the decay of vegetable matter. 

 There was no fireplace. The manner of constructing these walls 

 was the counterpart of Icelandic work. I shall now show you how 

 this differs from post-Columbian cellars. 



This is a photograph of a ruin in the Thjor's River Valley, in 

 Iceland. It shows the sod between the stones closely packed but 



