﻿FIELD AND FOREST. 51 



Those shells near the surface were bleached and abraded, but below, 

 they retained the natural epidermis. The interstices were filled up 

 with a blackish loamy earth resembling ashes and pulverized charcoal. 

 In the mass were imbeded peices of plain and ornamented pottery, 

 Jasper, chert and quartz arrow heads, some of them entire, but the 

 larger number fragmentary. We also found the bones of mammals, 

 and pieces of charcoal, or chared wood. Some of the pottery was black- 

 ened on the outside as though it had been" set on or had hung over a 

 fire. I did not notice particularly a notch in the edges of the shells 

 indicating that they had been opened with an instrument, especially 

 not in the clams and therefore I conjectured they had been opened by 

 heat, No bones of fishes were discovered. — S. S. Rathvon. 

 Lancaster, Pa. Aztg. 1&76. 



Catalpa, or Cigar Tree. — The latter is the name by which a 

 stately tree was known in my boyhood, about fifty years ago. It 

 stood in front of a drug store on Main Street in the borough of Ma- 

 rietta, Pa., and continued there for forty years or more, but where it 

 came from, or who planted it, I never learned. The town was foun- 

 ded in 1802, and this was probably the first ornamental tree planted 

 in it. " It was a thing of beauty and a joy" as long as it continued 

 in foliage and bloom. 



It was perfectly unique in that neighborhood, and many were the 

 speculations in reference to its native locality. Since then, however, 

 I have seen numbers of them growing wild in Pennsylvania, or at least 

 growing in places where they could not have been planted by civilized 

 human hands. As you approach the Schuylkill River, on the Penn- 

 sylvania Rail-Road, the Catalpa is seen in abundance on either side of 

 the road for several miles. During the summer season I have noticed 

 them for twenty years at least, but I have noticed none as tall as those 

 alluded to in the August number of Field and Forest. I verily 

 believe that some of the boys in my youth took their first lessons, in 

 smoking, by using the "beans," or "cigars" of the Catalpa I refer 

 to above. They are not a vevy sightly tree when denuded of their 

 foliage, and I believe I never noticed what I would consider a well 

 formed one, but when in foliage, and especially when in flower, noth- 

 ing can excel them their majesty and profusion, and under those cir- 

 cumstances, all their deformities are completely covered. — S. S. R. 



