INDIAN MOUNDS IN SOUTHERN FLORIDA. 401 



After digging' up the entire surface, I found nothing worthy of note. 

 My predecessor left little excepting a few fragments of crania, teeth, 

 and broken bones. Signs of fires were visible in several places, and as 

 I saw no fragments of vertebras, I suppose that partial cremation was 

 practiced here as it was on the Anclote River. 



8. BURIAL MOUND AT JOHN'S PASS. 



No other mounds occur, that I am aware of, until we reach John's 

 Pass, 18 miles south of Clear Water. Here, on a low mangrove island 

 just inside the pass, lying nearly east and west, is a small burial mound. 

 The situation of this mound is peculiar in several respects, as the island 

 contains very little habitable land and no fresh water whatever. The 

 larger portion of the island is covered daily by tide- water, leaving only 

 two low narrow ridges of dry land parallel with the northern and southern 

 shores. These ridges are not over 25 yards in widtli in their broadest 

 parts, and in most places they are not more than that number of feet iu 

 width. 



The ridge running parallel with the southern shore is very low and 

 narrow, and at its eastern termination is not more than 2 feet above tide- 

 water. At this point is situated the burial mound under consideration, 

 covered by a dense growth of sea-grape and Spanish bayonet. 



The mound is oval in shape, 50 feet long by 25 feet wide, and not ex- 

 ceeding 3 feet higher than the original level of the ridge upon which it is 

 built. The material used in its construction is sand, which was obtained 

 by cutting away the ridge to the east and west, and heaping the sand 

 thus obtained upon the land left between the ditches. 



The mound had never been explored, but many bones and skulls lay 

 exposed upon its surface, the result of weathering, or possibly of inva- 

 sions of the sea, or both. The surface about the base was thickly 

 strewn with fragments of pottery ; in fact, it seemed that the whole 

 foundation of the mound was covered with broken pottery previously to 

 the interment of any of the bodies. 



Here the mode of burial changed. There were no signs of fire what- 

 ever, and the skeletons reposed at full length, generally resting on the 

 right side. Another point of difference was the large number of children 

 and infants buried here — only about fifteen adults to some forty inter- 

 ments. I succeeded in obtaining nine perfect crania from this mound, 

 among them those of several children, but no ornaments except a soli- 

 tary glass bead and a short tube of silver formed by rolling a thin plate 

 into a cylinder. 



There are no large trees on tin ' island, excepting a few scraggy cedars ; 

 consequently, the growth upon tin; mound consisted of small bushes 

 similar to those growing along the higher ground. On either side man- 

 grove flats stretch away, where the soldier-crabs hold high carnival. 

 The finding of the glass bead does not prove conclusively that the inter- 

 ments do not antedate the period of European emigration, as it lay upon 

 S. Mis. 54 20 



