46 
that the heap is at least 400 years old from the stump of a tree that grew 
on top), then its position would be quite natural. Yet the silting up of this 
bay may not have taken more than 400 to 500 years, so that geology can 
tell us no more than we know already. The second site is at Port Hammond 
in Fraser River delta, where there is another large heap 20 miles by water, 
and 10 by land, from the present shoreline. It is impossible for the old 
shoreline to have extended so far inland, even several thousand years ago 
before the building up of the present delta; and we may be sure that the 
shells were not packed over-land. Almost certainly, therefore, they were 
carried up by canoe on the flood tide, which could still be done in the winter 
months. So in this case again geological considerations give no help. 
They may, however, yield more definite results with other shell-heaps along 
this coast that still await examination. 
The most definite information concerning the antiquity of some of the 
shell-heaps comes from another source — from the forest trees that have 
grown on their surfaces. Four Sitka spruce trees growing from a heap 5 
feet deep, 700 yards hack from the sea at Yakan point, Queen Charlotte 
islands, attained a circumference of 125, 129, 136, and 148 inches respect- 
ively before they fell. As they lay on the ground smaller trees — a spruce 
18 inches in diameter, and hemlocks 6 to 8 inches — grew on them. The 
fallen trees had decayed so much that it was impossible to count their 
annual rings; but clearly a minimum date for the abandonment of this 
shell-heap must run into several centuries. 
Other heaps near Vancouver give information that is still more precise. 
In 1897 there stood on one heap that was 8 feet high the stump of a Douglas 
fir that showed over four hundred annual rings. This heap must have 
been abandoned before 1497; before an earlier date still, in fact, because 
there was a second stump on it larger and presumably older, although its 
rings could not be counted because the centre was hollow. A Douglas 
fir cut down on another and higher shell-heap many years ago showed 
four hundred and twenty annual rings, so that this heap was abandoned 
before 1500. We know neither how many years had elapsed between the 
abandonment of these shell-heaps and the growth of the trees, nor the 
rate at which the shell-heaps themselves had accumulated; but if the 
upper layers are at least 400 years old, the lower ones must be considerably 
more ancient. 
There seems no reason to believe that the two shell-heaps just described 
are the oldest along this coast. Others may be centuries older, preceding 
perhaps the Christian era. We may derive from tree-growths minimum 
dates for a few, but unless we can obtain some geological indications, there 
seems little hope of discovering the true age of any heaps except the most 
modern. 
