saved from destruction the most beautiful relic of ' Old Japan ' — the tombs of 

 the ShoguBs." * 



Besides the investigations of Steenstrup in Denmark, we have the valuable 

 memoirs of Wyman on the shell mounds of Florida and New England. De- 

 posits of a similar nature have been recorded or described as occurring in Eng- 

 land, Scotland, Ireland, France, the Eastern coast of the United States, the valley 

 of the Mississippi, on the west coast from California to, Behring Strait, Brazil, 

 the Gulf of Guayaquil, Australia, Tasmania, and the Malay Archipelago ; and 

 doubtless they will be found scattered all over the world. 



That these deposits are not all of the same age is certain ; for just as the stone 

 age exists in certain parts of the world to-day, so these deposits are in process 

 of formation both among savage and civilized people. "While the shell heaps 

 of New England have the same essential features as those of Denmark, it can 

 not be safely assumed they were made long before the advent of the European ; 

 for the natives were then living in the stone age, as it were, and were still form- 

 ing deposits of shell in precisely the same way. It is true that many of these 

 deposits when first observed by the earliest settlers were covered with a heavy 

 growth of forest trees, and the presence of a moiar tooth of the polar bear, and 

 the abundance of the remains of the great auk now supposed to be extinct, lead 

 us to believe that the New England deposits have some antiquity. 



In Japan, however, the case is quite different; for with its ancient civilization 

 aud history, running back for fifteen hundred and perhaps two thousand years, 

 and the fidelity of its records, we have as it were a longer time measurement by 

 which to estimate the age of the shell deposits here. For this reason a much 

 greater importance attaches to the minute and faithful exploration of such 

 deposits in Japan. 



Having for years studied these deposits in Maine and Massachusetts in com- 

 pany with Prof. Jeffries Wyman and Prof. F. W\ Putnam, I felt prepared to 

 undertake a similar investigation in this country aud therefore at the outset 

 kept a sharp look out for evidences of their occurrence. A few days after my 

 arrival in the country I fortunately discovered a large and extensive shell mound 

 on the immediate line of the railway a few miles from Tokio. A series of ex- 

 plorations was made in company with my special students, Mr. Matsura and 

 Mr. Sasaki, and, in the first excavations Prof. Yatabe, Prof. Toyama, Mr. 

 Matsnmura, Mr. Fukuyo, Dr. David Murray, and Prof. Parson participated. 

 The collections from Omori are now arranged in the Arelueologieal Museum of 

 the Tokio Daigaku. Most of (lie specimens have been collected by Mr. Sasaki 

 and the lamented Mi'. Matsura, who were indefatigable in their efforts to make 

 the series as complete as possible. 



* Miphon and its Antiquities. 



