CARDIAD^. -COCKLE. 4 ( J 



existing in the province of Wellesley, near the Mudah 

 river ; that they were about five to six miles from the 

 sea, situated on sandy ridges that appeared formerly to 

 bound the narrow estuaries communicating with the 

 ocean. He adds that these mounds of cockle-shells 

 are about eighteen to twenty feet high, and that the 

 Chinese immigrants have largely employed them as a 

 source of lime. These mounds are supposed to be of 

 great antiquity, from the fact of the shells being partly 

 cemented together by crystallized carbonate of lime, 

 the result of the very slow action of atmospheric and 

 aqueous influences. At the bottom of one mound 

 which contained 20,000 tons of shells, a human pelvis 

 was found; and other remains and stone-implements 

 have been obtained from the Chinese lime-burners. 

 Mr. Earl attributes the formation of these mounds to 

 the Seniangs, a diminutive negro race, now sparingly 

 scattered over the surrounding country, but who were 

 evidently very numerous and widely spread in former 

 times.* 



In Grey's ' Australia/ vol. i., mention is made of a 

 hill of broken shells, which it must have taken cen- 

 turies to form, situated between Port George the 

 Fourth, and Hanover Bay. " It covered nearly half an 

 acre of ground, and in some places was ten feet high ; 

 it was situated over a bed of cockles, and was evidently 

 formed from the remains of native feasts, as their fire- 

 places and the last small heaps of shells were visible 

 on the summit of the hill." A similar mound noticed 

 near Port Essington, of shells rudely heaped together, 

 is supposed to be a burying-place of the Indians. 



At Wigwam Cove, Tierra del Fuego, piles of old 

 * ' Intellectual Observer,' vol. i. p. 239. 



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