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from about here. Some fifty years ago, however, bands of ten or more were frequently met with on their way to Fayetteville, armed with bows and arrows, and ready for a reward to display their dexterity in hitting, before it came down, a piece of coin tossed up in the air.

Implements of war or the chase, broken pots, burned stones, where fires had been made, and arrow-heads chipped from minerals, are met with in all directions, in the bottoms along the river, and on the hills within a mile or so of the numerous fishing-stands along the banks of the stream. Between the mouth of Uharree and Island Creek, on the river-bottom, large spaces are covered with chips and blocks of chert from which pieces had been taken. The lands being all made by successive deposits from the stream, the remains are found from the surface down to the old bed of the river, to the depth of about four feet. Broken pots, of various material and ornamentation, can be picked up. Among those sent to the Institution will be found one heavy specimen of soapstone, a mineral not found in this neighborhood. Some years ago, a whole pot was washed up during a freshet, but the vessel, which was of about two gallons' capacity, and gourd-shaped, unfortunately fell into the hands of children, was broken, and only a few fragments saved.

Immediately below the mouth of Uharree River, across the Pedee, when the waters are low, there can yet be seen the greater part of a stone ford, in the form of a zigzag rail-fence. In 1829 it was still entire, and could be used for passing over the stream; but the stones have since been removed from both extremities for the building of fish-dams. What remains, however, indicates the sound engineering notions of the builders when they traced their path along a course the angles of which would divide the force of the stream.

No mounds nor vestiges of other permanent works are to be found. What remains seems to have been left on a vast camping-ground during the shad-fishing season, which in those days must have yielded a prodigious number of fish; for, not fifty years back, more shad could yet be caught than could be cured by the fishermen. Not so, however, now. Game must also have been an attraction, for the wild approaches of the river are, even now, much visited by hunting-parties of the white race.

ANTIQUITIES OF FLORIDA.

BY AUGUSTUS MITCHELL, M. D., of Saint Mary's, Georgia.

While in the South during the winter of 1848, pursuing the study and collecting specimens of ornithology, I was impelled by curiosity to examine a mound of a moderate size situated on the southern portion of Amelia Island, Florida, being kindly furnished with colored laborers, and aided by Dr. R. Harrison.

This mound was about 15 feet in height, and 30 feet in diameter at

the base, flattened and worn by attrition for ages; there having been two growths of live-oak upon it, as stated by an old Spanish inhabitant of the place. The soil composing the mound was of a light sandy, yellowish loam.

We commenced the examination by cutting a trench 4 feet wide directly through the center, from the apex to the base, and then another trench at right angles to the former. The excavation revealed a number of relics, and the mode of burial of the mound-builders. They must have commenced by digging into the surface of the ground about 2 feet; then, partially filling the excavation with oyster-shells, they placed their dead on these in a sitting posture, their legs bent under them, with their faces to the east, and their arms crossed upon the breast, and next spread over them a stratum of earth. It is evident that in the successive burials the earth was reopened, and the additional bodies were placed close either to the back or side of those which had been previously interred, until the whole of the first layer was complete; then the circumference of the mound was walled in by a compost of marsh-mud; and then another layer of oyster-shells was placed over the heads of the first layer of bodies, and a continuation of the mud wall, until the superincumbent layer completed the mound to its apex.

Full three centuries must have rolled their tempests over this aboriginal repository of the dead. I quite expected to find everything like mortal remains returned to dust. But in this I was in error, as throughout the mound parts or complete portions of the bony structure still remained; those on the southern or sunny side being in a more perfect state of preservation. Counting the remains existing in the different layers of this ancient tumulus, it must have contained about four hundred individuals.

As we proceeded with our work, the interior of the mound presented many objects of interest to the ethnologist. We could not, however, secure many of these, since they crumbled, except the teeth, to dust as soon as exposed to the air. I had therefore to study them mostly in the earth, carefully scraping it away with a knife.

The conformation of the crania found in this mound appears to differ somewhat from that of the present Indians; the facial angle less, with superior depth of the frontal region, and greater capacity for the anterior lobes of the brain; the outer surface of the skull somewhat oval, smooth, and regular; frontal sinuses large; high cheek-bones; cavity of the antrum large; orbital cavity of the eye deep and large; occipital protuberance very large, with a great development of the organs of philoprogenitiveness; superior depth of the base of the inferior maxillary bone; rough serratures and deep depressions for the attachments of powerful muscles of that bone.

The teeth of many of the crania of this mound were, without exceptions, in a perfect state of preservation, the vitrified enamel of these organs being capable of resisting exposure for centuries. These

teeth presented distinctive appearances throughout, in the absence of the pointed canines; the incisors, canine, cuspides, and bicuspides all presented flat crowns, worn to smoothness by the attrition of sand and ashes eaten with the half-cooked food. A bi-section of some of these teeth showed the dental nerve to be protected by an unusual thickness on the surface of the crown. Not one carious tooth was found among the hundreds in the mound. Many were entire in the lower jaw, the whole compactly and firmly set. In some the second set was observed; while one jaw had evident signs of a third set, a nucleus of a tooth being seen beneath the neck of a tooth of a very old jaw, whose alveolar process was gone, and the whole lower jaw ossified to a sharp edge; none showing the partial loss of teeth by caries and decay.

Some of the skulls showed evident marks of death by violence, as from the hands of the enemy in war. In one instance the flint arrowhead was seen sticking in the left parietal bone. A number of skulls were broken in, mostly at the vertex, seemingly by that rude weapon, the stone battle-ax, which was so effective on the skulls of the Spaniards in the early periods of their settlement of Florida. It is evident that sanguinary conflicts often took place between tribes of the mainland, in their disputations for those enviable islands of the sea-coast, abounding then in spontaneous productions and surrounded by fish and oysters. No remains of these, much below adult age, were found; the weak and slender frame had returned to dust. All that could be traced of their mortality was a carbonized deposit in the clean sand, with here and there a small fragment of bone.

Pursuing my investigations, and excavating farther toward the southeast face of the mound, I came upon the largest-sized stone ax I have ever seen or that had ever been found in that section of the country. Close to it was the largest and most perfect cranium of the mound, not crushed by the pressure of the earth, complete in its form, quite dry, and no,sand in its cavity; together with its inferior maxillary bone, with all the teeth in the upper and lower jaws. Near by the side of this skull were the right femoris, the tibia, the humerus, ulna, and part of the radius, with a portion of the pelvis directly under the skull. All of the other bones of this large skeleton were completely or partially decayed. Contiguous to this was nearly a quart of red ocher, and quite the same quantity of what seemed to be pulverized charcoal, as materials of war-paint. Anticipating a perfect specimen in this skull, I was doomed to disappointment; for, after taking it out of the earth and setting it up, so that I could view the fleshless face of this gigantic savage, in the space of two hours it crumbled to pieces, except small portions. According to the measurement of the bones of this skeleton, its height must have been quite 7 feet.

There were three distinct rude ornaments in this mound. First, the vertebræ of a fish, painted with red ocher, and well preserved. Second, an hexagonal bead, made from the tooth of the alligator, (not painted.)

Third, the internal lamina of an oyster-shell, cut into small circular spangles, pierced with a hole in the center, and threaded with the fibrilla of the tendon of some animal, closely strung, and painted with red ocher.

Coal was freely diffused throughout the mound, which contained but little pottery. Two stone hatchets were found, and a small stone ax, in addition to the large one described. This instrument bore evident marks of fire.

There is one large mound on the eastern end of Amelia Island, Florida, and two mounds on the central portion of Cumberland Island, Georgia, likewise most of the islands on that coast, from which could be obtained large collections of materials for the advancement of ethnological science.

ANTIQUITIES OF FLORIDA,

[Extract from the journal of John Bartram, of Philadelphia. London, 1769.] "About noon [25th January, 1766] we landed at Mount Royal and went to an Indian tumulus, which was about 100 yards in diameter, nearly round, and near 20 feet high. Found some bones scattered on it. It must be very ancient, as live-oaks are growing upon it 3 feet in diameter. What a prodigious multitude of Indians must have labored to raise it, to what height we cannot say, as it must have settled much in such a number of years; and it is surprising where they brought the sand from, and how, as they had nothing but baskets or bowls to carry it in. There seems to be a little hollow near the adjacent level on one side, though not likely to raise such a tumulus the fiftieth part of what it is; but directly north from the tumulus is a fine straight avenue about 60 yards broad, all the surface of which has been taken off and thrown on each side, which makes a bank of about a rood wide and a foot high, more or less, as the unevenness of the ground required, for the avenue is as level as a floor from bank to bank, and continues so for about threequarters of a mile to a pond of about one hundred yards broad and one hundred and fifty long, north and south, seemed to be an oblong square, and its banks four feet perpendicular, gradually sloping every way to the water, the depth of which we could not say, but do not imagine it deep, as the grass grows all over it; by its regularity it seems to be artificial; if so, perhaps the sand was carried from hence to raise the tumulus, as the one directly faces the other at each end of the avenue. On the south side of the tumulus I found a very large rattlesnake sunning himself; I suppose this to be his winter-quarters. Here had formerly been a large Indian town. I suppose there are fifty acres of planting ground cleared, and of middling soil, a good part of which is mixed with small shells; no doubt this large tumulus was their burying-place or sepulcher. Whether the Florida Indians buried the bones after the flesh was rotted off them, as the present southern Indians do, I cannot say."

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