14 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED S'J'ATES. 



Everywliero that any digging lias been doue in Portland Laibor, iu the neighborhood of Harpswell, in tho 

 Back cove at the mouth of the Presumpscot, or elsewhere iu the upper and sheltered part of Casco bay, these 

 monster shells have been met with. In the harbor they are buried seven feet deep, so rapid has been the filling up by 

 sewage and other refuse, but behind the city, out of the way of drifting matter, they are struck only about two feet 

 under the surface of the bottom mud. Near Harpswell they are so accessible at low tide, that they have been 

 dredged up to some extent and used for manure upon the neighboring farms, wliere they very soon go to powder. 

 Upon nearly all the islands in the bay, also, have been found kjokkenmoildings, which have been extensively explored 

 and collected from for nuiseums of archajology by jMr. Fuller, Professor Morse, Professor Wyman, and others. 

 These hea])s are especially noted for the great quantities of the bones of the extinct auk, Alca inqyennis, that they 

 have yielded. 



Xot far southward of Casco bay are the Scarborough headlands, which were perhaps the first of all our shell- 

 heaps to attract attention. Southgate, in his history of the town, says : 



The excellent opportvmities for fishing and Uuut iug which dist.ingnished Scarborough, made it one of the favorite resorts of the natives. 

 The jjlace of their most ancient residence within the town was the point (Plnmmer's) south of Oak Hill. The site of their village 

 overlooks the river, marshes, and bay on the south, and was protected upon the north by a high ridgo of slate. There remains at that place 

 a large bank of shells from one to ten feet iu depth, supposed to have been deposited there by these Indians. » * * gome of the ticlds 

 on the south side of Blue point consist aluu>st entirely of shells brought there by the Indians, and there are similar traces of them on the 

 opijosite shore of Black point. 



Shell-heaps of other lands.— Shell-mounds, like that at Damariscotta, at various points along the shore 

 of Massachusetts, and in many other jiarts of the Atlantic coast of America, are found nearly all over the world. 

 They all tell the same story of savage life, and usually of an extremely degraded state of society, and an intensely 

 hard struggle for daily bread. It is a proof of no great sagacity to discover that mollusks were good for food. 

 Many animals, and even birds, found that out long ago. They are present in greater or less profusion upon all 

 coasts, and are more likely to be accessible than any other form of food, since they cannot get away, do not require 

 to be cultivated, and are equally plenty at all seasons. Nevertheless, it is only within a very few years that these 

 heaps of shells near the beach have attracted the attention of antiquarians, as storehouses of materials out of 

 which something of the history of now prehistoric times might be reconstructed. Indeed, their character has been 

 mistaken altogether, until within the memory of men now living ; for where they had been noticed at all they had 

 at once been set down as "old beaches", left high and dry by the sea, and this in spite ol the fact that it was well 

 known that just such structures were even now being i)iled up by various tribes of savage men in remote corners of 

 the globe. For instance, Captain Cook and Captain Grey both reported, that on the northwest coast of Australia 

 the natives, when they had any houses at all, dwelt in the flimsiest of huts along the coast line, and that there were 

 around them "vast heaps of shells, the flsh of which we suppose had been their food". Some of these mounds 

 were described as covering half an asre and being ten feet thick. Down iu New Zealand precisely the same thing 

 was observed. Captain Cook reported a similar state of afi'airs in Patagonia, while the Indians of Alaska and the 

 Eskimos of Greenland accumulated shells and bones in vast quantities round their doors, like their neighbors in 

 savagery on the eqitator and at the antipodes. Finally, it dawned upon students of archaeology that the prehistoric 

 iuhabitants of Europe might have had similar habits, and, if so, masses of castaway shells would remain to mark 

 the site of their huts and villages. This led to an examination of the "old beaches", when it was quickly seen that 

 they were the product of human agency — were, iu fact, the very remains the archaeologists were searching after. 



The most famous and extensive of these mounds in Europe were those of Deiuuark. They have often been 

 described under tbe name of kjokkenmoddings, from two words meaning "heaps of kitchen-refuse". 



Examination has made it evident that these deposits were scattered along the whole coast, following the ins and 

 outs of the deeplyiudented shore; but they never occur inland, although the changes in elevation of the coast have 

 in some cases placed considerable new laud betwixt them and the beach, just as, in other cases, the encroachment 

 of the sea has destroyed them in part, or wholly submerged them. It is in the northern half of Denmark, however, 

 that the most exploration has taken place; and it shows conclusively that the people who built them evidently 

 made their homes always on the shore, just out of reach of the tide, only now and then, perhaps, following the chase 

 into the interior. 



These heaps are much like that of Damariscotta. Some are of large extent and thickness, and hillocky ; others 

 of less size, but elongated ; a third sort in the shape of a ring, with a depression in the center, where we may 

 suppose the hut was built when last the jjlace was occupied. Sir John Lubbock's description of one of the most 

 productive of the heaps, that at Meilgaard, iu 1863, will give a good idea of the whole— 



In the middle this kjokkenraodding has a thickness of about ten feet, from which, however, it slopes away in .all directions; round the 

 principal mound aie several smaller ones of the same nature. Over the shells a thiu layer of mold has formed itself, on which the trees 

 grow. A good section of such a kjiikkenmodding can hardly fail to strike with astonishment any one who sees it for the first time, and 

 it is difficult to convey in words an exact idea of the appearance which it presents. The whole thickness consists of shells, oysters being 

 at Meilgaard by far the most numerous, with here and there a few bones, and si ill more r.irely stone implemenls or fragments of pottery. 



The four species of shells most abundant in tho Danish mounds are: the oyster, Osirca ednlis, L.; the cockle, 

 Caraium cdtile, L,; tlio mussel, Myiihis eduUx, L.; and tho periwinkle, Umrina liUoreaj L. 



