1867.] 301 [Morse. 



October 2, 1867. 



The President in the chair. Thirty-seven members present. 



The President exhibited a series of flint implements from 

 the Ishmd of Riigen, and from Norway and Sweden, consist- 

 ing of arrow and spear heads, square cut cliisels, etc. One 

 was a hatchet, with a circular hole for the insertion of the 

 handle, the interior of which was smooth, and the diameter 

 uniform. Mr. Rae, the Danish Consul in New York, had 

 shown how these lioles might be drilled, by boring half 

 through a paving stone with a rotating broomstick and sand. 

 A few implements representing saws and knives, and one, 

 undoubtedly used as a daggei", but resembling a large spear 

 point, were among the articles exhibited ; most of them were 

 unlike any found in this country. 



Dr. Wyman further gave an account of a recent visit by a 

 party of members of the Society to shell heaps, upon Goose 

 Island, in Casco Bay. The objects exhumed were nearly 

 similar to those found at Mt. Desert, and described by Dr. 

 Wjnnan at a previous meeting. Among the most interesting 

 objects were bones, apparently of the Great Auk, a bird now 

 extinct. 



Mr. Edward S. Morse called attention to the evidences of 

 great antiquity in the shell heaps at Goose Island. 



The deposits consisted of large beds of broken clam shells with 

 other species intermixed. Over five hundred square feet of surface 

 had been examined, and the entire absence of any metal, and the sin- 

 gular scarcity of stone implements were noteworthy. The deposits 

 showed an outcrop on the bank of from two or three to fourteen or 

 fifteen inches. As these heaps thickened very gradually toward the 

 centre, and covered areas of from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, 

 this outcrop showed evidences of extensive erosion of the bank since 

 the heajis were formed. Coupled with this fact, he noticed one place 

 where the erosion of the bank had exposed the surface of a rock 

 smoothed and scratched by glaciers, and a sufficient time had elapsed 

 to erase nearly all these marks fi'om the hard rock. He also remarked 

 that the shell lieajjs appeared to rest on the primitive soil. The turf 

 covered these heaps to the depth of six or seven inches, while there 

 were no traces of soil below. The laud shells, such as Helix Sayii, 



