DEAD WILLOW BEND. 141 



fires. By lucky chance I happened, not long ago, to be 

 passing where a space was being ploughed and prepared 

 for a basket-willow plantation. I noticed, long before I 

 reached the spot, being on higher ground, that the up- 

 turned earth was very dark, and so went over to exam- 

 ine the spot. The soil was really black, the discolora- 

 tion arising from the presence of great quantities of 

 finely powdered charcoal. These camp-fire sites, two in 

 number, were circular in outline, about fifteen feet in 

 diameter, and so closely situated that when seen from a 

 distance the outline of the two was that of an enormous 

 figure eight. 



I straightway commenced an exhaustive search for 

 Indian relics, and was very successful. Bits of pottery 

 were numerous, and the .omnipresent arrow-heads were 

 well represented. Two large circular plates of stone, 

 quite thin, smooth, and well burned, were of much inter- 

 est, as I had not gathered precisely similar forms in 

 my earlier relic -hunting expeditions. The quantity of 

 notched pebbles was remarkable, and their presence here 

 was, I thought, evidence that, at least among the Indians 

 of New Jersey, these stones were used as net-weights, 

 rather than for other purposes, as has been suggested. 

 Here was undoubtedly a temporary camp, near an ex- 

 cellent spot for fishing, and all the surroundings sug- 

 gested fish and fishing. The fact that the locality was 

 subject to overflow from freshets during the winter and 

 early spring, at once put it out of the question that this 

 was other than a temporary or periodically used site. 



To return to the notched pebbles : because so simple 

 an implement was used by the Ojibwa Indians of the 



