s 



238 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Oy.sters of a good quality are found in 

 the neighborhood at the present day, and a large number of persons gain 

 their livelihood as oystermen in the waters adjacent to the shell-heaps. The 

 latter are invariably composed of shells of the common oyster. No one can 

 doubt that these heaps are aboriginal deposits. Within a radius of three miles 

 from Mayo's Island, which is at the mouth of South River near its southern 

 bank, there are as many as twenty-five distinct shell-heaps, possibly four times 

 that number ; for I have never yet passed a day in that vicinity without finding 

 at least one new camping-place. The largest deposit, however, is on a property, 

 about two miles up the river, belonging to a Mr. Brewer. At this place there is 

 a point of land projecting into the river, with a well-sheltered little bay on its 

 southern side, forming an excellent location for a camp. The shells cover, I 

 should judge, from ten to twenty acres, and in places are as much as five feet in 

 thickness, thinning out by degrees. Unless a shell-deposit is carefully examined, 

 especially on a hill-side, one is very a])t to be misled, and to imagine it to be 

 deeper than it really is. 



" On the Brewer property I found the depressions common to shell-heaps, 

 not only in Xorth America, but also in Denmark, to be more distinct than else- 

 where in this vicinity. These depressions are elliptical in shape, but occasionally 

 round, and from eighteen inches to two feet deep in the centre. As a rule, they 

 measure from four to six feet in the smaller, and from eight to ten in the larger 

 diameter. The}^ are evidently the sites of habitations, parti}' filled by the 

 freezing and thawing of centuries, which causes the shells to break down as we 

 see stone Avails falling and forming accumulations totally unlike walls. On the 

 Brewer property the hollows are certainly twice as large as I have noticed them 

 elsewhere, probably because they were the sites of larger habitations. 



" One of the heaps on Mayo's Island is about one-fourth of a mile in length, 

 and extends back not more than thirty feet ; but as it reaches to the water's edge, 

 forming there a precipitous bank at least six feet high, it evidently has been 

 partly worn away. One heap, four or five hundred feet long, which crops out 

 along the bluff" on the south side of the river, and rises from six to fifteen or more 

 feet above tide, has Avithin ten years been reduced to half its size, and in a few 

 years more will have entirely disaj)peared. Another heap on the west side of 

 the river is little, if at all, above the present high-water line, and I think it 

 possible that the surface has subsided. 



"As to the age of these heaps, it Avould be most difficult to offer even a con- 

 jecture other than that, as a rule, they are pre-Columbian. Theories with the 

 strongest arguments (apparently) in their favor are often in a moment destroyed. 

 I instance the heap on the south side of the river, which I have said was disap- 

 pearing. In one place this heap is covered by at least five feet of superimposed 

 earth, which I considered a fair indication of great age, until on one of my visits 



