ETHNOLOGY. JDl 



America in 173G. His father was a merchant in Philadelphia, where 

 his son George was born in 1803. Having often visited the West Indies 

 as a supercargo, he became attached to the country, and, in 1828, en- 

 tered the mercantile commission business in St. Thomas. He afterward 

 removed to Saint John's, Porto Rico, where he remained until near the 

 time of his death, which occurred in Paris August 2, 1874, from the ef- 

 fects of a surgical operation, no was an honored citizen, and for many 

 years was consul general of the United States for the island. He was, 

 at the time of his death, consul for Holland and Austria, and had been 

 created by the King of Spain a "Knight of the Order of Isabella." Mr. 

 Latimer has left no written descriptions of the objects and the localities 

 of their discovery. His nephew, Mr. W. II. Latimer, writes: "I believe 

 he was prompted in the beginning by curiosity, but with increase of 

 materials and knowledge of the subject came also a greatly increased 

 interest, that spared neither pains nor expense in the augmentation of 

 his treasures. Visiting personally any neighborhood where his labors 

 were likely to be rewarded, and calling to his assistance many others 

 in different parts of the island, he added constantly to a collection which 

 he highly prized as the only one of importance existing of the aborigi- 

 nes of the island. Some of the specimens were found in caves, but the 

 greater part were turned up by the plow and hoe, when new lands 

 were put under cultivation, but I cannot specially localize them or say 

 whether any were found in graves or in shell-heaps." 



According to Sir John Lubbock's classification, the makers of these 

 objects were a purely neolithic people, and, according to Mr. Morgan, 

 they were not savages, but were in the "middle status of barbarism." 

 In addition to the fruits of nature, they prepared maize and cassava and 

 fermented drinks. They lived in round and square houses, with thatched 

 roofs, grouped in small and large villages. They made pottery, the 

 boldness and truthfulness of whose ornamentation attest their division 

 of labor. In a warm climate very little clothing was needed, yet they 

 spun and wove cotton cloth. Their implements of industry, so far as 

 we have recovered them, are, I repeat, the most beautiful in the world. 

 Their canoes, especially in Porto Kico, were exquisitely wrought, with 

 the sides raised with caues, daubed over with bitumen, and not flat, but 

 with a keel. (Stephens's Herrera, i, 340.) Their pastimes were the di- 

 versions practiced by our own Indians, consisting principally of mock 

 fights, in which oftimes many were wouuded or killed. Their artists 

 were prodigies in design and workmanship, as the finer forms which I 

 have described attest. Their social life is little understood, but proba- 

 bly resembled in all respects that of the Florida Indians at the time of 

 the discovery. The absence of all flaked or chipped stone implements 

 may be accounted for in several ways. The siliceous rocks which take 

 the finest chipping are not found here, and in many of the islands 

 shell (Strombus gigas) is the only available material for any implement. 

 Neither are the large animals here which require such hard and fine 



