572 WYMAN ON THE SHELL-HEAPS 
that there has been in all the localities, except at Salis- 
bury, a disintegration of the shores, the sea undermining 
and destroying the deposits. There can be no doubt that 
these were once much more extensive than now, and that 
the water has worked its way into their places. Lastly, 
these deposits contain the remains of animals, as of the 
elk, not known at present to exist to the eastward of the 
Alleghany Mountains; of the wild turkey, now virtually 
extinct in New England; and of the great auk, which, 
unless it still live on some of the small islands to the 
north of Newfoundland, has receded almost, if not quite, 
to the arctic regions. 
All these circumstances are certainly signs of the lapse 
of time. Nevertheless, in the absence of any positive 
data as to how long a period is necessary for the accumu- 
lation of vegetable mould, or for the washing of earth 
from the slopes above on to the heaps below, or for the 
rate of decomposition of shells in a given time, or of the 
rate of the denudations of the shores ; and in view, too, of 
the fact that the animals represented in the heaps, but 
now no longer met with in the regions of them, have all 
disappeared within the historic period of this continent, it 
will be readily admitted that proof of great age or “high 
antiquity” is not found in any or all the circumstances 
which have been mentioned above. 
On the other hand, it may-be safely said that there is 
nothing in the condition of these heaps which is inconsist- 
ent with the hypothesis that they were begun many cen- 
turies ago. The examinations at Crouch’s Cove, Eagle 
Hill, and Cotuit Port were sufficiently extended to enable 
us to obtain a fair representation of the objects they con- 
tain; but in no case was there found, nor have we been 
able to —_ D there had been previously found & 
