NEWLY DISCOVERED SHELLHEAP. 159 



Tread well's island, it having been in possession of the 

 Perkins family for several generations during the early 

 days of Ipswich, when it was always recorded on deeds by 

 that name. The heap was oval in form and bordered up- 

 on the salt marsh for about one hundred feet, and extended 

 back towards the southwest some sixty feet, where it be- 

 came of little depth and was lost in a ploughed field. 

 The depth of shells varied from a few inches on the outside 

 to rather more than three feet in hollows. The southern 

 end of the heap was composed almost enjtirely of oyster 

 shells, reaching in places to a depth of over two feet and 

 extending over a space ten feet square, and another smaller 

 space towards the northern end was also entirely com- 

 posed of these shells to about the same depth. The 

 larger portion of the heap was, however, of clam shells 

 intermixed with those of the hen clam and quahaug, 

 black earth, charcoal, burnt stones and bones, with here 

 and there, the shells of the mussel, cockle and limpet. 

 Where the oyster shells were thickest but few other ob- 

 jects were found. One perfect valve of the smooth species 

 of Pecten was collected ; the species so common in the 

 shellheaps at Marblehead being entirely absent. Three 

 sinkers were found near the centre of the heap, at a depth 

 of one foot and but a few feet apart. A few arrowpoints, 

 kuives, rude stone implements and chips were collected in 

 various places, and, at diflferent depths, a broken gouge 

 and portions of other implements including a socket or 

 handle apparently made from the antlers of a deer. At 

 the bottom, everywhere, were the shells of the Helix al- 

 holahris, the common land snail, and in similar situations 

 but less frequent, were those of another snail. In the 

 lower stratum, covering a space of about two square feet, 

 was quite an amount of some friable substance which has 

 not yet been identified, but which may prove to be the 



