Apkil 14, 1S99.] 



SCIENCE. 



537 



mainland opposite, over a hundred and fifty 

 were noted. In general they are located 

 at the mouths of fresh-water streams, and 

 are several hundred yards in length by five 

 or six feet in depth, while a few are miles 

 in length, and some reach a maximum 

 depth of over nine feet. The presence of 

 stumps over five feet in diameter standing 

 on nine feet of these layers, of which but 

 few are more than an inch or two in thick- 

 ness, indicates a considerable antiquity for 

 the lower layers. These are composed 

 almost exclusively of the well preserved 

 shells of clams and mussels, scattered 

 among which are found a very few points 

 and barbs rubbed out of bone, such as 

 were used recently for harpoons, and bone- 

 choppers for preparing cedar-bark, ex- 

 actly like the implements used to-day in 

 the manufacture of cedar-bark, mats, and 

 clothing. Numerous stone pebbles with 

 battered ends, such as are still used in a 

 game resembling quoits, and a copper orna- 

 ment in shape like those made of iron and 

 now worn in southern Alaska, were also 

 found in the heaps. One pair of these or- 

 naments,, made of copper, was found in a 

 grave in the interior. The extreme scarcity 

 of archaeological specimens in the very ex- 

 tensive shell-heaps of northern Vancouver 

 Island is what we might expect if the early 

 people depended as largely as do the pres- 

 ent natives upon cedar products easily 

 disintegrated by the warm, moist climate. 

 The scarcity of human remains in the shell- 

 heaps may be accounted for on the suppo- 

 sition that tree-burial, where the bodies fall 

 and are soon destroyed or the bones scat- 

 tered, was as extensively employed in 

 former times as at present. Everything 

 which has been found tends to prove that 

 the ancient people who discarded the shells 

 forming these immense heaps, over succes- 

 sive layers of which forest trees have grown 

 to a diameter of four or five feet, were in all 

 •essential particulars similar in their culture 



to the tribes at present inhabiting the same 

 areas. 



The shell-heaps in the delta of the Eraser 

 Eiver, while in general resembling those of 

 the coast, present several marked diiier- 

 ences. There is much more black soil, 

 charcoal, and ashes among the layers of the 

 shell-heaps here than in those along the 

 beaches of the sea. The shells are much 

 more decayed, and mixed with the black 

 soil. Among the layers are found numer- 

 ous skeletons of two distinct types of men ; 

 and the proportions of specimens to the ex- 

 tent of the shell-heaps is vastly greater 

 than in the other localities, the specimens 

 in the coast shell- heaps being much sepa- 

 rated by vast amounts of shell material. 

 Whether these differences are peculiar to 

 the lower Fraser Eiver, or are common to 

 all fresh- water streams of the region, is 

 problematical; and their cause, whether 

 due to a change in the customs of the 

 people, or to a variation in the people by 

 mixture or succession, is worthy of study. 



The age of these heaps is considerable. 

 A stump of the Douglas fir over six feet in 

 diameter stood on one of the heaps where 

 the layers, there reaching a depth of over 

 eight feet, contained human remains. This 

 tree indicates an age, for the top layers, of 

 more than five hundred years ; and allow- 

 ing for the formation of eight feet of strata of 

 shell, ash, and earth, most of which are but 

 a few inches in thickness, it must be con- 

 ceded that the bottom layers are much 

 older than this rather conservative estimate 

 for the minimum age of the top layers. 

 The annual rings upon an ordinary stump 

 standing upon this shell-heap numbered 

 over four hundred. The circumference of 

 another stump exceeded twenty-eight feet. 



The shell-heap at Port Hammond, in the 

 upper part of the Fraser delta, is over twenty 

 miles by water from the present seashore, 

 where the shell-fish are found. By land, the 

 nearest point of seashore is over ten miles. 



