On the other hand, it may be safely said that there is nothing in the condition of these heaps which is inconsistent with the hypothesis that they were begun many centuries ago. The examinations at Crouch’s Cove, Eagle Hill, and Cotuit Port were sufficiently extended to enable us to obtain a fair representation of the objects they contain; but in no case was there found, nor have we been able to learn, that there had been previously found a single article which could be regarded as having been made by, or derived from the white man, nor did we obtain any evidence that these particular heaps had been materially added to since the European has occupied these shores. Had intercourse with Europeans been once fairly established, it were a reasonable presumption that we should have found at least a glass bead, a fragment of earthenware, or an instrument of some sort indicative of the fact, especially when we bear in mind that it would be in just such places, where the savages collected around their fires and seething-pots to cook and eat, that such objects might be expected to be broken or lost. Finally, if the statements of Williamson on the authority of Johnson be correct, viz., that “a heavy growth of trees was found on them” (the deposits of clam-shells near Mount Desert) “by the first settlers,” we have something like satisfactory evidence that their age could not have been less than between three or four centuries. VIII. _Remains of Animals._ Human remains have not been found in the shell-heaps of Denmark, except in the case of casual burials, as of a shipwrecked sailor, or of burials from some other unusual occurrence, and these are of a modern date. The same absence of human remains marks the shell-heaps we are describing, with a single exception. At Cotuit Port an unequivocal metatarsal bone from the great toe of the human foot was discovered. No other bones were found with it, except those of animals. It was so deeply buried, and its appearance was such, that no doubt exists that it was of the same age as the heap itself; we have therefore assigned it a place in the following table, which gives a list of the species of animals uncovered and identified by their bones, or shells, in the different heaps, and shows their relative distribution through them.