190 In Touch with Nature. 



hard-pan, and so were started upon what was then 

 dry land. Now, the marsh has grown about them 

 to a depth of several feet, and not far from the 

 dark holly forest, wherein I am now resting, there 

 is a long, narrow deposit of broken and burnt 

 shells that is not exposed even at low tide. One 

 need not fear that his fancy will run riot in pict- 

 uring that early time when the broad marsh and 

 shallow bay were scenes of human industry of a 

 most primitive kind. While the gathering of 

 shell-fish, for both immediate and future needs, 

 was kept up by the Indians into historic times, it 

 must not be concluded that the remains of their 

 feasting are all comparatively modern and offer no 

 differences among themselves. 



These Indian shell heaps or " kitchen-mid- 

 dens" vary considerably in one particular, some 

 containing traces of Indian art in its highest 

 development ; others have little else than a few 

 broken and battered stone hammers. This might 

 be explained if there was no evidence of antiquity 

 of a geological character ; but this exists, and a 

 very superficial tabulation of these shell-heaps, 

 scattered over a few square miles of territory, 



