KITCHEN MIDDENS 
63 
mountains on Hoste Island and away on the Beagle Channel. 
Row boat got loose from tow rope on way back and had to be 
rescued. Dry within. This little boat was one in which the 
Williamses spent fifteen days rounding the Horn Islands. 
Gave George a day off. He is difficult to get anything out 
of, and keen on getting as much as he can for nothing. 
May ig , Sunday . Quiet day. Gave George rations. 
Spanish. All afternoon searching along river bank, and got 
two old broken spear heads and a scraper. George showed 
me how Indians chopped tree down with bone ‘wedge’ 
(fig. 10, no. 1), sharpened by rubbing, and hit chiselwise 
with a stone till deep notch made in trunk. 
May 20y Monday . Calm day. Colour and reflections. 
Mountain sides w T ith grey rocks and line of beech trees bare 
of leaves, of colour like bloom on purple grapes; others russet 
brown and almost orange, or deep green, greenish-yellow, or 
brownish-red. Black soil. Forests of beech of two kinds. 
Trees in open all bent over from the south-west. Sun setting 
across the Murray Channel, with snow mountains behind 
on Hoste Island, and further away along Beagle Channel; 
Douglas River running inland with reflections and old jetty. 
Claude Williams dug out one side of kitchen midden. 
Six of these formed a kind of semi-circle with open side 
towards sea. Each one had depression in middle; longest 
being [perhaps 15] 1 feet in diameter and six feet high. 
Looked as if natives camped in the middle with fires all 
round them. One mass of shells and black earth with layers 
of calcined pinkish earth. Mussel shells predominated, but 
large numbers of Fissurellas and Patellas and Modiola-like 
shells and Volutes. Bird bones, apparently gannet, seal 
bones, and whale bones. Very few stones, and no sign of any 
chipped ones . Single bone harpoon. 
1 Miss Hamilton’s memory. Mr. Williams writes to her that the average grave 
depression is 6 feet in diameter, and from 3 to 4 deep. 
