232 THE STONE AGE IN NOVA SCOTIA.—PATTERSON. 
some time after. In the meantime the place had been examined 
by other parties, and a number of stone axes and arrow-heads 
had been taken away. My first visit to it in 1874 was the 
commencement of my Archeological investigations. I did not 
examine the place with the same intelligence that I would have 
done since, but the circumstances just mentioned excited my 
curiosity, and on this and subsequent visits I examined the 
ground with some care, and with results of some interest. 
At the spot where the transfixed skull had been turned up, 
though the ground had been a good deal disturbed before my 
visit, I found over a circular space of over six feet.in diameter 
and toa depth varying from fifteen inches to two feet, a loose 
brown mould, mixed with fragments of bone, so decayed that 
not a complete bone could be found, and what remained could be 
crushed between the fingers. Below this I found fragments of 
birch bark in which the Indians were accustomed to enclose their 
dead, and below that was a hard subsoil, which plainly had 
never been disturbed. The soil around was also entirely dif- 
ferent in color and composition. 
There could be no doubt that this dark mould was from the 
decay of animal matter, and that the place formed a sort of 
pit into which a number of bodies had been thrown. From 
the ground having been thoroughly dug over before iny visit, 
and the fragmentary condition of the bones, it was impossible 
to ascertain anything of the order in which the bodies had 
been arranged, but the transfixed skull with the other cir- 
cumstances, seemed to indicate that these were the remains of 
those who had fallen in some battle, which had been here 
heaped together, “in one red burial blent.” The shallowness 
of the pit shows that it must have been used previous to the 
arrival of Europeans, when sharpened sticks were perhaps the 
only instruments of digging. The same appears from the fact 
that no articles giving evidence of intercourse with civilization 
were found among the remains. Whether there had been any 
mound formed over them could not be ascertained. If there ever 
had it could have only been a very small one, and whatever 
