MOUNDS IN FLORIDA. 90 



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four bright browu bunds about the body- whorl quite as distinctly as in 

 the day when they were taken from the water. Others seemed to have 

 changed their substance, and were white and glossy with a porcelanous 

 appearance. Here, too, we found a lump of hardened red paint. 

 Some pieces of pottery were perfectly plain, while others were orna- 

 mented in various patterns both by scratching and by depressions. 

 Some of the checkered ornamentations seemed to have been made by 

 repeated impressions with a stamp, such as would be produced by 

 making channels in a flat surface at regular distances apart and at 

 right angles to each other, and then, in using the stamp, turning it 

 between each two impressions so as to make the lines in one depression 

 stand obliquely to those of the adjoining one. At the junction of two 

 such depressions the overlapping or intermingled lines were plainly ■ 

 visible. One piece was ornamented by straight parallel depressions, 

 and then, after the dejiressing implement was withdrawn and while the 

 clay was yet soft, other depressions were made transversely to the first 

 ones, but not so deep, the ribs between the first depressions being 

 flattened down on the cross-lines and partially filling the first depressions. 

 One piece was found of such an arc, that supposing it was from a round 

 vessel the diameter of said vessel was 29 inches. 



ITear this shell heap were two mounds of symmetrical shape, formed 

 mostly of earth, but partly from shells like those in the heap. The 

 earth was the same as the surrounding soil. These had been dug into 

 considerably, and on digging farther into one of the holes we found the 

 leg and foot bones of a human skeleton, but no implements or orna- 

 ments. 



In returning we found by a ditch on the flats of the St. John's Eiver, 

 a smaller shell heap of fresh shells, but not thick enough to cover the 

 ground. The shells were identically of the same three kinds. The fresh 

 operculum lying by these shells showed that they had recently been taken 

 alive, and that their meat had been picked out by some small animal. 



The long-billed curlew {Numeiiius longirostris) is said to eat the live ani 

 mal from these shells. These shells were of great interest to me for they 

 put atrestall speculation as to where the Indians obtained their supply 

 of food, of which the shell heaps are the refuse, and proved to my mind 

 that they took their shell fish from the river whose bank they have lined 

 with shell heaps, and also that the same species of mollusks are living 

 there to-day. Undoubtedly this fact has been noted and published be- 

 fore, but there are many who still believe that the shell heaps of the 

 St. John's River are composed of marine shells. When we consider the 

 resemblance of the Poinus to the Natica, it is not strange that such opin- 

 ions may be formed by a cursory observer. 



Our uextstop wasat Tampa, Hillsborough County, and our first excur- 

 sion was to Kocky Point, Old Tampa Bay, about 5 or 6 miles westerly 

 from Tampa, near where the salt works were located during the civil 

 war. Here was a large mound of marine shells situated at the base of 



