And besides, there were no champagne corks among the shells.

If there ever was a restaurant there, it must have been in Smyrna's palmy days, when the hills were covered with palaces.

I could believe in one restaurant, on those terms; but then how about the three?
Did they have restaurants there at three different periods of the world ?--because there are two or three feet of solid earth between the oyster leads.

Evidently, the restaurant solution will not answer.
The hill might have been the bottom of the sea, once, and been lifted up, with its oyster-beds, by an earthquake--but, then, how about the crockery?
And moreover, how about three oyster beds, one above another, and thick strata of good honest earth between?
That theory will not do.

It is just possible that this hill is Mount Ararat, and that Noah's Ark rested here, and he ate oysters and threw the shells overboard.