76 



New Castle, Me., July 10, 1878. 

 Dr. Moses: — Dear Sir: — I have uncovered the entire wall of 

 which you saw only a part. The main wall is about nine feet 

 long and four feet high, terminating in short end walls running out 

 at right angles with the main wall. These end walls are about four 

 feet long and slant off from top to base, the whole wall being on about 

 four feet of shells and in this shape : 



E. 



Now I think there was a front wall and longer end walls, which 

 have fallen down and rolled into the river or been hauled away. You 

 will see that by supplying what I have supposed belonged to it once 

 that we shall have a very respectable lime kiln, which I have no doubt 

 it was from the fact that I found lime in quite a large quantity; say 

 a bushel or more on what I judge to be the floor of the kiln, it being 

 on a level with the lower stones in the wall. Also a little less than 

 half of a hard burnt brick — like our bricks. No charred wood, bones 

 or implements of any kind were found. Ic is my opinion that the 

 early settlers of this locality cut a channel into the shell-bank, built 

 this kiln and burned the shells into lime ; after they left it the shells 

 fell into it and covered it from view. In process of time the outer 

 wall next the river became exposed by the washing away of the bank 

 and disappeared as I have supposed above. I shall investigate further 

 and will inform you of any new discoveries that I may make. 



R. C. Chapman. 



Dr. Chapman has gathered an interesting collection of relics from 

 these mounds. Among them are numerous pieces of pottery includ- 

 ing quite a large fragment of a gracefully shaped vase which he had 

 restored. A number of stone axes and implements are also in his 

 possession, but these were mostly gathered in the neighborhood of the 

 mounds and not in the mounds themselves. Indeed, there seems to 

 be a remarkable scarcity of such articles in the shell-heaps at Damar- 

 iscotta. Near the summit of the large mound a human skeleton was 

 exhumed, but this Dr. Chapman regards as an intrusive burial. No 

 other human bones have ever been found in them, the shell mounds 

 here differing in this respect from those on the coast of Florida, 

 where, according to Prof. Wyman, fragments of human bones are often 

 found, evidently the remains of cannibal feasts. 

 *(3ee article in American Naturalist, Vol. 8, p. 403, entitled Cannibalism. 



