New Tork. 187 



bottom : a rocky and a ftony bottom is fel~ 

 dom found here. The oyfter {hells are ga- 

 thered in great heaps, and burnt into a lime, 

 which by fame people is made ufe of in build- 

 ing houies, but is not reckoned fo good as 

 that made of limeftone. On our journey to 

 New Tork, we faw high heaps of oyfter fhells 

 near the farm-houfes, upon the fea fhore ; and 

 about New Tork, we obferved the people had 

 carried them upon the fields, which were fown 

 with wheat. However they were entire, and 

 not crufhed. 



THE Indians, who inhabited the coaft before 

 the arrival of the Europeans, have made oyfters 

 and other (hell fifh their chief food ; and at 

 prefent, whenever they come to a fait water, 

 where oyfters are to be got, they are very ac- 

 tive in catching them, and fell them in great 

 quantities to other Indians, who live higher 

 up the country : for this reafon you fee im- 

 menfe numbers of oyfter and mufcle fhells 

 piled up near fuch places, where you are cer- 

 tain that the Indians formerly built their huts. 

 This circumftance ought to make us cautious 

 in maintaining, that in all places on the fea 

 fhore, or higher up in the country, where 

 fuch heaps of fhells are to be met with ; the 

 latter have lain there ever fince the time that 

 thofe places were overflowed by the fea, 



LOBSTERS are like wife plentifully caught 

 hereabouts, pickled much in the fame way as 

 oyfters, and fent to feveral places. 1 was told 

 of a very remarkable circumftance about thefe 

 lobfters, and I have afterwards frequently heard 



it 



