II.
Frenchman’s Bay. Mount Desert is the largest of the islands on the indented coast of Maine, and forms the western shore of Frenchman’s Bay. Many shell-heaps are scattered over this and the adjoining islands and the main land. Williamson,[4] without particularly designating them, mentions the existence of several from one to two acres in extent, and states that “a heavy growth of trees was found upon them by the first settlers.” We have examined two. The first of these is in Gouldsboro’, on the main land, and near the water’s edge on the eastern shore of the bay. It is said to cover an acre of land, but being under cultivation was examined only near its border, where a pit was sunk showing a deposit of clamshells about two feet in thickness. Among these were found the bones of several animals, including those of the deer, elk, and beaver, but no implements of any kind. Stone implements have, however, been found by those who have cultivated the soil of this neighborhood.
A more complete examination was made of a second deposit on one of two small islands, neither of which are named, about a mile west of the place just mentioned.[5] This heap is seen on a bank, at a height of about six feet above the high-water mark, varies in thickness from a few inches to about three feet, and extends along the shore about two hundred and fifty feet, and from thirty to forty feet inland. A section through the heap at its thickest part showed that it belonged to two different periods, indicated by two distinct layers of shells. The lowest, a foot in thickness, consisted of the shells of the clam, whelk, and mussel, all much decomposed, and mixed with earth. Above this was a layer of dark vegetable mould, mixed with earth and gravel, and from six to eight inches in thickness. Above this was a second layer of shells, of the same species as those just mentioned, but in a much better state of preservation, and with less intermixture of earth; this deposit was in turn covered by another layer of earth and mould, and these now sustain a growth of forest trees, but none of them of large size. From the state of things just described, it would seem that the place had been reoccupied, after having been once abandoned long enough for a vegetable mould to be formed, and a layer of earth from some neighboring source to be deposited over it. Charcoal was found in considerable quantity, scattered among the shells, and the remains of an old fireplace were uncovered. The bones of animals, and the various kinds of implements ([Pl. 14], figs. 3, 4, 5; [Pl. 15], figs. 10, 11) obtained during the excavations, will be described in another page.