New Jerfey, Raccoon. 279 



neareft fea fhore. Thefe men, and all the inha- 

 bitants of Raccoon, concluded from this circum- 

 fiance (of their own accord, and without being 

 led to the thought) that this tra6t of land was a 

 part of the fea many centuries ago. They like- 

 v/ife aflerted, that many little lakes, which in 

 their youth were full of water, even in the hot- 

 teft feafon, now hardly formed a narrow brook 

 in fummer, except after heavy rains j but it did 

 not appear to them that the rivers had loft any 

 water. 



AOKE HELM found (on digging a well) firft 

 fand and little ftones, to the depth of eight feet ; 

 next a pale-coloured clay, and then a black one. 

 At the depth of fifteen feet he found a piece of 

 hard wood, and feveral pieces of mundick or 

 pyrites. He told me, that he knew feveral places 

 in the Delaware, where the people went in boats, 

 when he was young, but which at prefent were 

 changed into little iflands, fome of which were 

 near an Englijh mile in length. Thefe iflands 

 derive their origin from a find or bank in the 

 river; on this the water wafhes fome clay, in 

 which rufoes come up, and thus the reft is ge- 

 nerated by degrees. 



ON a meeting of the oldeft Swedes in the pa- 

 rifh of Raccoon, I obtained the following anfwers 

 to the queftions which I afked them on this ac- 

 count. Whenever they dig a well in this neigh- 

 bourhood, they always find, at the depth of 

 twenty or thirty feet, great numbers of oyfter 

 fhells and clams : the latter are, as was above- 

 mentioned, a kind of large fhells, which are 

 found in bays, and of which the Indians make 



T 4 their 



