In this connection the lollouing information Irom the 

 Virginia Magazine of Hislory and Biography is pertinent: 



In 1728 "King" Carter, his sons Robin and Charles, and his 

 son-in-law, Mann Page of Rosewell, organized the Frying 

 Pan Company to mine copper in the cupreus sandstone for- 

 mation on tlie present boundary of Fairfax and Loudoun. ^* 



Also, a notice in the I'lramia Ga-ette stated that the 

 ship Sally was cleared on January 13, 1767, i)ound for 

 London with a cargo that included, anions other 

 items, five casks of copper ore.'"'' It is not intended to 

 imply that ore was taken to Rosewell for smelting;. 

 Such a major undertaking would require \ery much 

 more evidence, either archeological or historical, 

 before it could be established as so much as a likeli- 

 hood. In the absence of this evidence, one lump of 

 ore must be explained away as a sample sent down or 

 perhaps brought from the mines by John Page, 

 possibly as part of some experiment or even as an 

 exhibit presented before members of the Society for 

 the AcKancement of Useful Knowledge. 



From areas and levels B4, 03 and Q3 came frag- 

 ments representing five crucibles of small and medium 

 size, all sa\-e one of the fragments bearing traces of 

 copper on the insides. Since the crucibles are of a 

 coarse, sandy pottery — a ware favored for this pur- 

 pose certainly as early as the 15th century — and their 

 shapes (small circular bases and triangular mouths) 

 are of similar antiquity, they are extremely difficult 

 to date. However, the Rosewell crucibles are of sizes 

 comparable to numerous examples recovered from the 

 cellar floor of a house in Williamsburg occupied b\- the 

 goldsmith John C:okc from about 174(1 until his deatli 

 in 1767. 



It may be significant that most of the waste brass 

 and copper that was uncoxered came from the north 

 side of the pit, suggesting thai inetalworkinc, may 

 have been carried out in the vicinity of the foundations 

 north of the deposit. 



ANIMAL BONES 



As might be expected in a pit containing a pre- 

 dominance of domestic trash, animal ijones were 

 plentiful but i^'eneraily so splintered and broken that 



it was impo.ssible to identify all (jf them.^'* In bulk 

 the bones weighed 70 pounds, but this, of course, 

 gives no indication of the number of animals repre- 

 sented. Beef bones were plentiful, but only one ox 

 skull was included, this represented by a single horn 

 core. Pig bones also were common, and the man- 

 dibles and disassociated canines were readily identi- 

 fied. Deer were also identified by inandibles, but 

 in neither pig nor deer did skulls survive intact. 

 Among the smaller bones were the mandible of a 

 squirrel, the skull and incomplete skeleton of a cat 

 (E primary), part of the plastron from a Carolina 

 box tortoise, vertibrae and ribs from a small fish 

 (attached to the copper pan, fig. 24, no. 9), numerous 

 chicken bones, and a few bones that came froiri 

 either turkey or goo.se. 



MARINE SPECIMENS 



L'nder this heading must be grouped the huge 

 quantity of oyster shells of all sizes that comprised 

 the bulk of the finds from the second stratum. These 

 shells were clearly kitchen debris and were not re- 

 tained. Of greater interest were a single cowrie shell 

 and a small number of coral fragments, most of the 

 latter in an extremely worn condition. Sample 

 pieces of the coral were submitted to Frederick M. 

 Bayer, associate curator of marine invertebrates at the 

 Smithsonian, who provided the following information: 



Specimen from stra- Difiloria strigosa (Dana). A reef 

 tum O2. coral widely distributed in the 



West Indies, including the Ba- 

 hamas and Florida Keys north 

 to Miami; also Bermuda. 

 Specimens from strata Too worn for accurate identifica- 

 0/2, Da. tion, bin botli ijrobably West 



Indian. 



ARCHITECTURAL ITEMS 



The architectural finds included fragments of worked 

 stone, builders' hardware, plaster, and window glass. 

 Had all such pieces been found in the ruins of the 

 irian.sion itself, one would be on reasonably safe ground 

 in a,s.sociating them with the building and in using 

 them — as was done at the Governor's Palace in 

 Williamsburg — as the basis for the reconstruction of 



" "The Will of Charles Clarter of Cleve," annoted by Fairfa.x 

 Harrison, Virainia Magazi'ir of Hislory and Biography, 1923, vol. 

 31, no. 1, p. 48, note 18. See also "Carter Papers," J'irgiiiia 

 Magazine oj History and Biography, 1898, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 18. 



*^ Norton Papers, op. cit. (footnote 6), p. 22. 



*^ For a study of the identification and significance of exca- 

 vated animal bones, see J. W. Cornwall, Bones for the Archaeolo- 

 gist, London, 1956. 



176 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



