ARTIFICIAL SHELL-DEPOSITS. 225 



A shell-deposit at Keene's Point, on Muscongus Sound, is four or five feet 

 thick on the water's edge, and extends several hundred feet along the shore and 

 a hundred feet inland. The shells here found are those of the soft-shell clam, 

 which enters most largely into the formation of the heap, the quahaug (hard- 

 shell clam), scallop, whelk {Buccinum), and cockle {Natica). "Although the 

 bones of mammals were most often those of the moose, deer, bear, wolf, fox, and 

 beaver, yet there were also found bones of the otter, skunk, raccoon, woodchuck, 

 seal and porpoise. Bones of several species of birds occurred, also some bones 

 of the turtle, while fishes were represented by the cod, flounder, and great goose- 

 fish, giving with the mollusks quite an extended bill of fare. The bones and 

 shells were broken with hammer-stones, which are found scattered through the 

 heap." Stone implements occurred rather frequently, and from the presence of 

 numerous chips it has been inferred that the former were made on the spot. 

 Bone implements were also met with.'^' 



" The discovery of the art of pottery," the lecturer stated, " seems to have 

 been made during the immense time these heaps were being formed, as I have 

 not found fragments of pottery in the lower portions of the older and larger 

 heaps, while such fragments are common in the upper beds and in the more 

 recent heaps." 



The extensive deposits at Damariscotta and Newcastle, situated opposite each 

 other on either side of the Damariscotta River, consist almost wholly of oyster- 

 shells. These oysters are slender and long ("slipper-shaped," as Professor 

 Baird calls them), many measuring fourteen inches in length, and now hardly 

 ever found of this shape and size on the coast of New England. " Old men at 

 Damariscotta say that their fathers have sometimes seen one, but it has probably 

 never been abundant since the time of the earliest settlement, so that we must 

 believe that these great heaps were formed long before that time." 



In the shell-heap at Newcastle a human skeleton Avas found a few years 

 ago, and Messrs. A. T. Gramage and A. I. Phelps discovered jDortions of five 

 skeletons in a shell-heap on Fort Island, in the Damariscotta River. 



New York. — Allusion has been made on a preceding page to shell-heaps on 

 the coasts of New York. They are particularly numerous on Long Island, and 

 those in the neighborhood of Sag Harbor, on Gardiner's Bay, in the eastern part 

 of the island, liave been specially examined by Mr. W. Wallace Tooker, a 

 resident of that place. He has kindly communicated to me the following 

 description : — 



* The bone dart-heixds represented in Pig. 226 on p. 143 and Figs. 236 and 237 on p. 148, it will be remem- 

 bered, were found by Messrs. Gamage and Phelps in the course of their examination of shell-heaps on Damaris- 

 cotta River and Muscongus Sound. 



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