70 HOLLICK. 



A limited number of species have, of course, also been intro- 

 duced, purposely or accidentally, by human agency and are now 

 part of the wild flora, and further additions will doubtless be 

 made in the same way in the future, but as a study of plant dis- 

 tribution Block Island will always be of interest chiefly on ac- 

 count of the geological causes which determined the character 

 of its flora long before the advent of man. 



III. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



Archeology, 



Around the shores of Great Salt Pond and on the sand dunes 

 which border the western shore of the island evidences of former 

 occupation by the Indians are numerous. Kitchen middens are 

 exposed in several street cuttings ; implements are often found 

 scattered over the surface of the ground in certain localities and 

 skeletons have been unearthed from time to time. 



In many places the kitchen midden accumulations were so 

 obvious that it was impossible for me to ignore them entirely. 

 They were found to consist of the customary collection of oyster 

 and other shells, bones, pottery fragments, fire-cracked stones, 

 charcoal, finished implements, rejects, flakes, chips, etc. An 

 attempt was made to calculate the relative abundance of the 

 several kinds of molluscs represented, with the following result : 



I. Oysters; 2. hard clams ( ^r;//^.j) ; 3. soft clams ; 4. mus- 

 sels ; 5. pectens ; 6. long clams {Mactrd) ; 7. limpets; 8. 

 land snails ; 9. occasional conch and razor shells. 



The finished implements found were two axes, of a plagioclase 

 igneous rock and three arrow points, all of quartzite. The 

 flakes and chips were found to be mostly of white quartz and 

 quartzite, with chert and jasper sparingly represented. 



In the sand dunes are many old fire places, mostly buried by 

 the sand which has drifted over them. They could generally 

 be located, however, by the thrifty nature of the turf on the 

 surface immediately above. Indeed, my atttention was first 

 called to their presence by noticing the patches of short green 



