Page:Anthropology.djvu/149

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
148
MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY.

and headland in Miegomish Harbor. In the neighboring counties on the northern shore of the province, the same thing is to be found, particularly at Antigomish Harbor to the east, and at Tatamagouche to the west.

There is scarcely anything in this province that can be called a mound or earthwork, at all events like those found in the Western States. There was found some years ago, at Tatamagouche, a small heap. It was situated on the farm of the late Rev. Hugh Boss, next to A. Campbell's, which forms Campbell's Point, at the entrance of the harbor. It was opened and examined some fifty years ago by the late Dr. Thomas McCulloch, of Pictou, who found in it a large number of human bones, and various stone implements. He published no account of them, but I have learned that he came to the conclusion that it was a place where a large a number had been buried, probably after a battle. The spot has long been plowed over, and the ground leveled.

There was another found at Kempt, Yarmouth County, in the western part of the province. The spot where it was found was some fifteen miles in the interior, and some distance from the river. It was opened by Dr. Joseph Bond, of Bear River, Digby County, N S., and from him I learned that it was about ten feet in length, five feet in width, and four feet in height. It has been represented to me as resembling a large cradle hill. In this were found forty very beautifully executed stone-arrow or spear-heads, which are now in the county museum at Yarmouth, established by L. E. Baker, esq., who has had them photographed. Dr. Bond supposed that it was an ancient burying place, though he found no bones, for which he accounted by supposing that they had become so entirely decayed as to be no longer recognizable. But Dr. John W. Webster, of Yarmouth, informed me that from the material around he believed it had been the site of an old workshop. This might be the case, and the mound might have been a cache of such implements.

I have seen some thin layers of shell at points on the shores of our harbors, but I am told that there are some of considerable thickness at points in Miegomish Harbor. They are generally close by the shore, and the sea, wearing away the soil, exposes them on the banks. But none in this part of the country have undergone a proper examination.

There are in the museum of the Mechanics' Institute, St. John, N.B., two sculptures. The one is very rude, and will be found figured in Dawson's Acadian Geology. The other is a medallion of about fifteen inches in diameter, containing a rather well-executed profile of a human head. But I am not certain that this was found in the province.

The rocks on the north shore of the province are soft, and are being worn away so rapidly that if there had been any carving upon them it would long ere now have disappeared. In Yarmouth a stone has been