Parts of the cellar's wooden floor still survived (figs. 6 and 7) and comprised boards ranging in width from 5 to 7 inches laid over sleepers or joists 4 to 6 inches wide. The height of the underlying timbers could not be determined as the weight of the cellar fill might be assumed to have pressed the floorboards down as the wood of the sleepers decayed. Only occasional floorboards survived and the channels left by decayed sleepers did not extend across the full width of the excavated cellar. From these facts it was deduced that the boards had been cut from woods of different types, some of which had decayed more completely than others, and that the sleepers were made from short and sometimes roughly cut lengths of timber. These sleepers may, in fact, have served only as a base for anchoring the ends of floorboards, as was certainly the case northwest of the underhearth where the nails from the ends of five boards had dropped through into the channel left by the decayed sleeper. It may be supposed, therefore, that the sleepers' location would have been dictated by the vagaries of board length rather than by the design of a planned, measured foundation and that they served as ties for the floor, rather than joists raising it off the natural clay beneath. In addition to the remains of the carefully laid floor, another much-decayed board, 10 inches wide, and of uncertain thickness, was found running north/south immediately west of the underhearth. This board was partially covered by mortar, suggesting that it had been set on the dirt during the building of the brick structure. The filling of the cellar in the vicinity of the chimney and underhearth comprised a single massive deposit of sandy clay, scattered through which were numerous iron nails, isolated oystershells and occasional fragments of pottery, glass, and tobacco-pipe stems. A similar unified filling was encountered at the western end of the excavation, but towards the middle a large and irregular deposit of oystershells was sealed within the sand at a depth of 4 feet 6 inches sloping upward to 3 feet 6 inches towards the south wall. The shell layer averaged from 6 to 9 inches in thickness and was found to contain many of the more important artifacts. [Illustration: Figure 6.--REMAINS OF WOODEN FLOOR BOARDS in the cellar. (_Photo courtesy of E. DeHardit._)] On the wooden floor of the cellar lay a thin 1/2-to 1-inch layer of wood ash, mortar, and occasional brickbats. Had this accumulation been considerably thicker it might have suggested that the building above had been destroyed by fire. But although the presence of this skin of debris could not be explained, it was far from sufficient to support such a conclusion.