80 Annual Meeting. 



The present proprietor of Hazelwood — Mr. Read, readily 

 gave his consent to the investigation of the mound, which was 

 carried out during Easter week of this year. I had the assistance 

 of five men the first day and three the two following days. We 

 decided first to search for the remains of a refuse deposit or 

 kitchen midden outside the mound, and with this object in view 

 dug a deep trench round the base of the mound, examining 

 carefully all the soil thrown out. It is of ordinary peat. At a 

 depth of six feet we had to suspend operations in this direction 

 owing to the inflow of water, but we probed down the soft 

 bottom of the trench with crowbars, and found that the peat 

 extended down at least four feet further, so that the growth of 

 peat is not less than, and probably more than, ten feet. In 

 prol)i ng we did not come to hard till, so that the original depth 

 of the lake was not ascertained. The section of the trench 

 showed that the mound had been built after the usual manner 

 of early lake dwellings. As a foundation, large logs and branches 

 of trees were laid down, weighted down by stones and soil. 

 When the pile had been thus raised above the water level, it 

 became a habitable island. The timber branches upon which 

 the crannog was built are quite rotten and of a soft sponge like 

 texture : they consisted of hazel, birch, oak and fir. I saw no 

 sign of upright stakes surrounding the mound as are usually 

 found in lake dwellings ; the branches and logs on which the 

 island was built seem to have been thrown down horizontally in 

 haphazard fashion. 



In the circular trench we found no remains of implements 

 or utensils ; as we could not dig deeper than six feet on account 

 of the inflow of water, we filled in the trench and re-sodded it. 



We next proceeded to cut sectional trenches and pits in the 

 mound itself. The upper surface of the island is composed of 

 clay soil of a depth of about three feet or more in places. Near 

 the centre of the island we came upon three distinct hearths, one 

 above the other, with clay intervening. It is evident these 

 represent three periods, and that the lowest hearth represents 



