74 



deposits are entirely free from any admixture of soil or debris of any 

 sort, and one is struck with the appearance which a fresh section pre- 

 sents, the clean white wall of shells looking like a kiln of freshly baked 

 porcelain. Another circumstance that strikes the explorer is the 

 extremely loose condition of the shells, even at the base of a deposit of 

 great depth. The shell may be drawn out with the greatest ease from 

 any portion of the bank, and, with a little caution, in an entire state, 

 although readily crumbling if not handled with great care. From all 

 that I can learn the oyster is no longer found in this vicinity, but 

 tradition has it that it still thrived in the river when the early settlers 

 first came.* In digging down from the surface of one of these heaps at 

 a depth of three or four feet fragments of charcoal were found, and 

 here and there a layer of the same substance. Above and below these 

 layers was some times a conglomerate mass of shells, apparently burned 

 to lime by the action of fire. Among the articles found during the 

 first exploration were some bony scales of the sturgeon, a fragment of 

 the jaw and the incisor of a rodent animal. Near the layers of char- 

 coal fragments of bird bones were also found, apparently the relics of 

 a feast. Two and a half feet below the surface was found a piece of 

 pottery. Similar bits of pottery had been found by Mr. R. K. Sewall 

 of Wiscasset in the neighborhood of a former Indian settlement at 

 Eben-e-cook, in Sagadahoc county. The evidence seemed conclusive 

 that these shell-mounds were not extinct oyster beds left exposed by 

 some former uplift of the Atlantic coast, but the work of aboriginal 

 tribes who repaired to this favored region at certain seasons of the 

 year and celebrated their feasts with the delicious bivalve which must 

 have formerly abounded in these waters. That these feasts were held 

 periodically and perhaps at considerable intervals is shown by the con- 

 dition of the larger deposits, and especially the large one which slopes 

 to the water's edge on the west bank of the river. Here, at intervals 

 of about a foot, occur lines of vegetable mould marking the limit of 

 successive deposits, so that many years must have passed during their 

 accumulation. The accumulation of such vast deposits and the cli- 

 matic and other changes which led to the disappearance of the shell- 

 fish once so abundant, will long afford matter for interesting inquiry 

 to the archaeologist. Several of the mounds were measured, and some 



*Mr. Puller, Curator of the Portland Society ol Natural History, informs me that oys- 

 ters are yet talieu in considerable qiiantity in the Sheepscott river, which is a stream a 

 few miles west of the Damariscotta. 



