91 
The piece of carbonized rope (Plate XVIII, figure 5) was found in a 
small deposit of ashes in what appears to have been a filled-in post hole, 
about 15 inches deep in refuse deposit 1. It is about 1,- inch thick and con- 
sists of three strands which are twisted to the left. 1 The component strands, 
which are about ^ inch thick, are each composed of three broad strips of 
vegetal material like bark, about 3V inch thick and ^ inch wide, parts of 
some being loosely twisted and other parts tightly twisted to the right. It 
is impossible to determine the kind of bark. It may be either slippery elm 
or leatherwood (Kalin, II, page 12), both of which are used by modern 
Indians; 2 at least the strips do not show the easily separated layers of the 
inner bark of the basswood. 
The bark object (Plate XVIII, figure 3) consists of a thick, bent piece 
of birch bark, about 6 inches long, inches wide at one end and 3f inches 
at the other. It is not carbonized and owes its preservation to the fact 
that it was buried in the muck surrounding the spring. The cut edge of 
the narrow ends and one of the long edges has been smoothed. There are 
five stitch holes at irregular distances apart along the edge of the narrowest 
end, but there are none at the wider end. About -§ inch from the edge of 
one of the long sides, and roughly parallel with it, is a row of five similar 
holes (a part of the edge is broken so there may have been six holes) . the 
distances between which are nearly equal. About If inches from this row, 
and almost parallel with it, is another row of four holes. The unevenly 
severed edge at the wide end suggests that the piece may have been much 
longer. It may be part of a basket. 
Large bark vessels, like puncheons, were used as containers for smoked 
fish at Hochelaga (Cartier, page 158), and bark casks were used for 
storage purposes by the Iroquois of what is now New York state (Morgan, 
I, page 310 and among the Hurons (Sagard, 1:135), and so probably 
also by the people of this site. 
Figure 4. Wooden dish from a grave at Roebuck. In Royal Ontario 
Museum of Arehasology, Toronto (i natural size). 
iMorgan (II, p. 17) says: “They [the Iroquois] also made a common bark rope for ordinary uses, which con- 
sisted of three strands, hard twisted; a single rope being frequently 40 or 50 feet in length.” 
2 M organ (II, p. 16) says: “Bark rope has been fabricated among them from time immemorial. In its manu- 
facture they use the bark of the slippery elm, the red elm, and the basswood.” 
