Stratum V, 9-2/3 cb. m.—34 objects = 3.5 per cb. m.

Stratum VI, 4-1/5 cb. m.—9 objects = 2.1 per cb. m.

Stratum VII, 2-4/5 cb. m.—10 objects = 3.5 per cb. m.

The specimens contained in the graves in strata VI and VII were not counted in with the rest. This comparison shows mainly that stratum II is the richest in implements. The connection of this fact with the preponderance of ashes will be pointed out later.


[26] Eight-tenths of all the shells found in the Oregon shellmounds belong to the species of Mytilus californianus, Tapes staminea, Cardium nuttalii, and Purpura lactuca (Schumacher, Smithson. Rep., 1874, p. 335).

[27] As by the Minooks and the Nishinams (Powers, l. c., pp. 348 and 430); and certainly the custom was a very general one.

[28] We were not so fortunate as was W. H. Dall in the shellmounds of the Aleutian Islands in being able to make “a tolerably uniform division” of the layers in the mound according to the various foods used. (These layers were: “1, Echinus layer; 2, fishbone layer; 3, hunting layer.” Contributions to North American Ethnology, I, p. 49.) The shellmound of Emeryville presents a much greater similarity in the kinds of food used during the different periods of its occupancy.

[29] Extinct in California, and in fact south of Washington; J. Wyman found the remains of elk, wild turkey, and large auk in the shellmounds of New England. The elk, though still in existence, is no longer to be found east of the Allegheny Mountains; the wild turkey is still in existence, but is not to be found in New England, while the auk lives only in the Arctic regions, or at least not farther south than the northern part of Newfoundland (Amer. Naturalist, I, p. 572).

[30] Also found in the shellmounds of New England.