298 STOCK-IN-TRADE OF AN ABORIGINAL LAPIDARY. 



placed on end, on and around it, as closely as possible, and the smaller 

 objects were spread over them in a rather promiscuous way. 



The owner of the articles here described, we may suppose, had no in- 

 tention of leaving them buried in the ground ; he would some day have 

 recovered them, had circumstances iDermitted. Death, captivity, or re- 

 moval to another part of the country, from which he never returned, may 

 have frustrated his design. The deposit in question shared the fate of 

 many others which have been preserved to our time, in order to add, 

 as it were, to our knowledge of the former occupants of this country. 



It would be a vain endeavor to offer any conjecture as to the age 

 of the deposit. The objects appear absolutely fresh, not showing the 

 slightest alteration of the surface. Jasper, however, is a very hard sub- 

 stance, capable of resisting the influences of exposure for ages. On the 

 other hand, there is nothing that would militate against a comparatively 

 recent, though pre-Columbian, origin of the deposit. 



It must have been a very difficult task to work a stone as hard as 

 jasper without the proper appliances, and we cannot but admire the 

 skill, and, above all, the patience of the artist or artists who fashioned 

 the ornaments from such an obdurate material. "Yet it is known that 

 even at the jiresent time mineral substances of equal hardness are 

 shaped and perforated in the most primitive manner by tribes occupy- 

 ing a very low i)ositiou in other respects. The execution of such work 

 is but a trial of endurance, a quality displayed in an eminent degree by 

 uncivilized man when his mind is bent upon a definite purpose. 



OBSERYATIOXS OX A GOLD ORXAMEiXT FE03I A MOIXD IN FLORIDA. 



By Chakles Kau. 



In December, 1877, Mr. Damon Greenleaf, of Jacksonville, Florida, sent 

 for examination to the National Museum a curious relic of gold, lately 

 discovered in a mound in Manatee County, Southern Florida, with a 

 request for information as to its probable origin and use. 



The accompanying illustration represents the object in question re- 

 duced to one-half of its natural size, the original measuring exactly nine 

 inches from the point to the middle of the oi)posite curve. It is cut from 

 a flat piece of gold plate, not quite a millimeter in thickness, and some- 

 what thinner toward the edge. The specimen is broken in two pieces, 

 as indicated by the dotted line in the figure; but the two parts fit well 

 together, and thus the original character of the object remains unal- 

 tered. On the whole, it is in a good state of preservation, though the 

 effects of long exposure are plainly visible. Both faces appear bright 

 and smooth, and the engraved lines, which represent exactly the same 

 pattern on both sides, seem to be as fresh as on the day when they 

 were traced. 



Little need be said concerning the shape of the ornament, considering 

 that all its features are distinctly expressed in the cut. The maker 



