ABTIFICIAL SHELL-DEPOSITS. 241 



noticed, it was enclosed by a nearly square wall composed of surface-material. 

 This deposit does not afford as fine an exposure as the one first described, because 

 it has been longer under cultivation, and the shells have mostly crumbled into 

 dust. The yield of this deposit is in variety the same as that of the other, but 

 less abundant. 



" The three remaining refuse-heaps are very small, but present the same 

 general features as the last one. 



" Within these deposits and in close proximity to them have been found 

 many human skeletons. Some of the skulls do not show the flattening of the 

 occiput so characteristic of the red race. 



" The island, at the time of its discovery, was overgrown with forest-trees, 

 hiding the shell-heaps as well as the rest of the land. When Blennerhassett 

 first began to cut down the wood, he found antiquities in the form of pottery, but 

 probably was not aware of the existence of shell-deposits." 



Ohio. As early as 1822, Mr. Caleb Atwater noticed the existence of heaps 

 of cast-away fluviatile shells, intermingled with bones, and inclosing fire-places, 

 near the mouth of the Muskingum River, opposite Marietta. He regards them 

 as very old.* 



Tennessee. Dr. D. Or. Brinton, while attached to the Army of the Cumber- 

 land during the late civil war, noticed the prevalence of shell-heaps along the 

 Tennessee River and its affluents. " They are very frequent at and above the 

 Muscle Shoals, and are composed almost exclusively of the shells of the fresh- 

 water muscle. Close to the famous Nick-a-jack Cave is the railway-station of 

 Shell-Mound, so called from an uncommonly large deposit of shells, probably 

 left by the Cherokees, who so long used this spot as one of their headquarters. It 

 was taken by our troops as a military post, and 1 embankments were thrown up 

 around the summit of the mound. The excavations made for this purpose abun- 

 dantly proved its wholly artificial origin. In all instances I found the shell- 

 heaps close to the water-courses, on the rich alluvial bottom-lands. The mollusks 

 had evidently been opened by placing them on fire. The Tennessee muscle is 

 margaritiferous, and there is no doubt but that it was from this species that the 

 early tribes obtained the hoards of pearls which the historians of De Soto's 

 expedition estimated by bushels, and which were so much prized as ornaments."f 



I learned from Dr. Brinton that the mussels of the Tennessee River were 

 occasionally eaten " as a change " by the soldiers of the above-named army-corps, 

 and pronounced no bad article of diet. 



Iowa. Accumulations of fresh-water shells were observed during five years 



* Archseologia Americana ; Vol. I, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1822 ; p. 225. 

 ) Brinton : Artificial Shell-Deposits in the United States j Smithsonian Report for 1866 ; p. 857. 

 R31 



