On the use of Shell- Mar L 239 



of small parts of marine shells, chiefly scallop shell, about 

 one-eighth of an inch square, or somewhat longer or 

 smaller, with scarce any sand or soil with it : some of it 

 seems to be petrified, and is dug up in lumps, like stone, 

 from four or five, to forty or fifty pounds in weight, hard 

 to break even with the edge of an axe, and will remain 

 for years, tumbled about with the plough, before it is en- 

 tirely broken to pieces, and mixed with the soil ; indeed 

 you may observe it in some parts of the bank, where the 

 soil has been washed from it, appearing like rock stone ; 

 but if broken and pulverized a little, it effervesces very 

 much with acids. It lies from three to five and six feet 

 deep, from the surface of a light or sandy soil, on the 

 banks of the cove, but how deep the marl, or bed of 

 shells goes, we cannot ascertain, having never dug through 

 it. When we get from two to four feet deep into it, the 

 water springs, so that we have never gone deeper, but 

 fill up the hole with the surface soil, and open another. 

 It does not lie level, but waving, sometimes dipping so 

 deep that we lose it ; nor is it of one colour, but some 

 white, like dry mortar, some the colour of yellow ochre, 

 some red, like red ochre, and some blueish : but I do 

 not know any difference in the quality, from the colour. 

 In digging, it is generally loose and crumbly, but mixed 

 with hard lumps as above described : we find sometimes 

 whole shells of scallop, oyster, and barnicles. The kind 

 I estimate most, is of the foregoing description, and I am 

 of opinion it lies at different depths, under the whole of 

 this peninsula, which has been gained from the water, 

 and that the shells are of the different kinds of fish which' 

 inhabited the waters while they covered the land. In 

 some places, at heads of coves, I have traced the shells 



