290 ANTIQUITIES OF GEORGIA AND ALABAMA. 



lake is fast failing, haviug vsunk about 4 feet in the last ten years, and 

 ere long it, too, will be numbered with things of the past. 



Judging from the alluvial deposits on its banks, this was, at the time 

 when this Indian village flourished, a great lake for this part of Georgia. 

 Fish of all species common to the country are found in great abundance 

 here. From the number of relics found and the great quantity of fish 

 at present in the lake, 1 have no doubt that this place was once their 

 favorite hunting ground. About midway between the lake and village 

 v^as an earth-work. I only hear this from others, as it was plowed down 

 level with the ground long before I was born. People who have seen it 

 say that it resembled the breastworks of the present day j that it was 

 circular in form, inclosing about two acres, with a base 8 or 10 feet wide, 

 4. or 5 feet wide on the top, and an average height of 18 inches. They 

 supposed, and some still think, that it was made by De Soto, and that 

 he had a fight with the Indians here ; others think that it was made 

 during the Eevolutionary war, while I attribute the work to a more 

 ancient age, namely, t he " mound-builders." If this work was really 

 done by the " mound-builders" (and there can be no doubt of it), it is the 

 only trace left behind them in this vicinity. The idea that De Soto or 

 any other man had a fight with the Indians at this place is, to say the 

 least, absurd, for there are no implements of war found here other than 

 the arrows used in hunting, whereas if a fight had taken place between 

 De Soto and the Indians, some kind of war implements would have been 



found. 



v,^; 



SHELL HEAPS OJf MOBILE RIYER. 



By A. S. Gaines axd K. M. Cunningham, of Mobile, Ala. 



The Smithsonian Institution has received a very valuable collection 

 of shell-heap relics from Simpson Island, at the mouth of Mobile River. 

 They were sent by Mr. A. L. Gaines, land commissioner of the Mobile 

 and Ohio Railroad, who gives the chief credit for their discovery and 

 transmission to Mr. K. M. Cunningham, from whom the Institution has 

 received several communications, accompanied by sketches of the speci- 

 mens. 



These shell-heaps are very numerous on the banks of the Mobile 

 River at its mouth, especially upon Simpson Island, which forms the 

 delta between the mouth of the Mobile and that of the Tensas. Many 

 of them are the sites of market- gardens, and the shells from those most 

 accessible to the water have been utilized in paving the stock-yards of 

 the railroads, and the grounds around the cotton warehouses in Mobile. 

 The one from which the relics in question were recovered is about 19 

 miles above Mobile, on the land of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and 

 200 feet from the water's edge. The heaps are composed almost entirely 



