PiLunKett—On an Ancient Settlement. 67 
on the exploration, we commenced by sinking a hole, or trench, five 
feet deep and five feet wide, down by the side of what was evidently 
a hut, thus exposing the posts and framework of the side of the 
structure from top to bottom (Plate I1., fig. 1). An oak beam, seven 
and a-half inches in diameter, and nine feet long, penetrated a hole 
that was rudely formed in each post four feet from its lower end. 
These holes, it would appear, were cut with a small blunt hatchet, 
and were formed by cutting in from each side of the post towards the 
centre. The holes are about eleven inches in diameter at the surface, 
and narrow in to a width of nine inches in the middle part of the 
post, and are so rudely hagegled that they are neither round nor 
square. 
One of the posts was detached, and the lower or butt-end was 
covered over with many oval cuts. Evidently an attempt was made to 
dress the end, which was very imperfectly accomplished (Plate IL., 
fig. 2). The cuts on all the posts and stakes found were more or less 
concave, and I am of opinion were formed by a stone axe: owing to 
the bluntness and the bulged form of the sides of this instrument, the 
cuts made by it would necessarily have a concave surface; whereas 
those made by a metal axe are long, clean, flat cuts. 
There was a small hole, or eye, cut in a prominent part in the 
butt-end of every post, and most unskilfully done. At first I was 
much puzzled to know their use. I then—(as the mud in which 
the posts were originally sunk must have been soft, as I found 
bosses of rushes and heath, now changed into peat, under the ends of 
the posts)—imagined that ropes made of the willow, or from the 
hides of animals, might have been stretched across from post to post, 
and fastened in the holes in their ends, to keep them from spreading, 
as the holes through which the oaken beams passed in the middle of 
the posts were irregularly round, and the beam also partly round; so 
that the posts would be likely to shift their position unless bound in 
this way at their base. 
I subsequently changed my opinion, and I now believe they were 
formed for the purpose of hauling the huge trunks overland. Some 
of the posts measured nearly 30 inches in diameter. A rope made 
of skin could be attached to the trunk through this hole, by which it 
may have been dragged along overland to the then lake shore by 
either men or animals, and towed to the island by canoes. I care- 
fully examined the peat that filled these holes, and found no trace of 
anything else but peat. This strengthens my opinion relative to what 
the holes were designed for. 
We dug a trench five feet deep and five feet wide forward in a 
straight line, in a north-westerly direction, towards what appeared to 
be the top of another dilapidated hut. We had only excavated 
forward about two feet from the exposed side of the hut already 
referred to when we had to remove the stool of a huge pine-tree, 
which protruded its weathered top above the surface (Plate II. 
