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Bulletin of the Natural History Society . 
out the smaller fragments of bones, etc., and so it happened that 
in the course of time the stones around their fire-places, which 
were used to support the firewood and the pots, were gradually- 
buried up, and fresh stones had to be brought in to raise the wood 
above the embers and to support the cooking vessels. If the oc- 
cupants of a hut were careless enough to break a pot, it was more 
than probable that the fragments would be allowed to lie on the 
floor and be trampled under foot until buried out of sight among 
the debris scattered around the fire-place. The bones left after 
dinner received much the same treatment. When the flesh was 
eaten off the leg-bones they were broken up for the marrow they 
contained, and, with the smaller bones, were left scattered around 
on the floor, or perhaps the larger fragments would be flung care- 
lessly out of the door and left to fester in the sun. Occasionally 
a fit of house-cleaning would seize upon the occupants of one of 
these huts and the debris lying within on the floor would be 
scraped together and shovelled out at the door to mingle with the 
heap of shells and broken bones without. The evidence of these 
actions on the part of the inhabitants of hut A is found in the 
frequently alternating layers of charcoal mingled with broken 
bones, of pottery clay and other rejectamenta from the hut, which 
are found in the kitchen-midden before the door. These occur 
with considerable regularity and frequency in alternation with the 
layers of clam shells which form the bulk of the shell heap. Ow- 
ing to these occasional house-cleanings, and the vast quantities of 
clam shells thrown down around these dwellings, the kjokken- 
modding increased much more rapidly than the deposits within 
the huts ; and although fresh material was frequently brought in 
to level up the interior of the huts, the boughs and perishable 
matter within gradually decayed away and the floors sank down, 
so that now the depth of the deposit within the site of the huts 
is only about half as great as that of the shell heaps without. 
The fire-place of this hut was found to have been kept in the 
same spot from the time the hut was first built, almost until the 
settlement was abandoned. Such, however, was not the case with 
an adjoining hut-bottom (B), which was gradually shifted to the 
east, so that at the close of the occupancy of this village site it 
was about two feet from its original position. A similar want of 
