Discoveries at a Village of the Stone Age. 
7 
broke off the keen winds of winter ; and to the south was the 
sea-beach, where drift wood in abundance was thrown up, and 
where boats or canoes could be kept, secure from the rising and 
falling tide. 
The tide rises from twenty to twenty-five feet at this place ; 
and as the lower half of the beach is stony, it is probable that the 
savages who dwelt here obtained their principal supplies of shell- 
fish at some other point. A sandy beach, and therefore one more 
suitable for clams, exists on the river about half a mile further up 
than Phil’s Beach ; and extensive sand-flats abounding with these 
bivalves are found around the shores of Hog Island, off the mouth 
of Bocabec River. These sands, below the surface, are black with 
organic matter accumulated by the decay of marine animals 
(clams, &c.), and would be valuable as a fertilizer of the clay 
fields found in the valleys along these shores. Sea-fish and marine 
animals no doubt abounded then, as now, along the whole of this 
river. Herring and other fish are now taken in great quantities 
in the weirs at the mouth of the Bocabec. 
The position of the aboriginal settlement at Phil’s Beach was 
also very advantageous for hunting. The inhabitants of the 
village could float up with the tide three miles, to the head of 
navigation, whence they had a five mile range for hunting beaver 
and larger game on the branches of the Bocabec River ; or by 
going out of the River and passing around into Digdeguash Inlet a 
still more extensive woodland tract was open to them. From the 
mouth of the Bocabec they could also cross Passamaquoddy Bay 
in various directions in search of seals and sea-birds. 
The position of this village was well chosen for defence. Its 
inhabitants appear to have had an outpost at the point on the 
eastern side of the entrance to the Bocabec River, whence a view 
could be had of all canoes approaching from the Digdeguash or 
Magaguadavic River, or the more open part of Passamaquoddy 
Bay. Another section of the settlement occupied a small beach 
on the Bocabec River a little farther up than Phil’s Beach, and 
thus guarded the northern approach to the village. 
To the east of Phil’s Beach a spring of cool water flows over 
a low cliff into the sea, and would have given an unfailing supply 
of this necessary liquid to the inhabitants of the village. In the 
