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MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 677 



and, furthermore, be has since received a number of pipe-heads, resem- 

 hling it in shape, from the Upper Ottawa. 



There is, in the Provincial Museum at Halifax, a collection of varioua^ 

 aboriginal antiquities. It contains, besides the usual stone axes and 

 arrow-heads, some small pieces of copper, similar to those from Bock- 

 man's Beach, and a flat pipe found in the interior of the province, re- 

 markable from the circumstance of its having been found so far east^ 

 it being held that this is characteristic of the mound-builders or tribes 

 of the far West. There are also a few articles in the museum of the 

 Mechanics' Institute of St. John, N. B. The most remarkable are the 

 sculptured figure and medallion already referred to, and a small hammer 

 with a short stick for a handle, remarkable for the manner in which it 

 is iiistened to the helve, being merely held by a band of burnt clay. 

 Professor Jack, of the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, N. 

 B., is said to be the best authority in that province on this subject. 

 In the collection of Judge Desbusay, of Lunenburg County, N. S., are 

 also small pieces of copper from Bookman's Beach. Dr. Gray, of Ma- 

 hone Bav ; in the same county, also has a collection. 



THE ABORIGINES OF FLOPvIDA. 



By S. T. Walker. 



In comparison with their number and size, the shell-heaps of Florida 

 contain but few relics of the peojjle who constructed them. Besides the 

 ashes of their fires, the refuse of their feasts, and the fi-agments of their 

 utensils, we find but little to aid us in our researches into their civiliza- 

 tion or condition. The shell-heaps are so vast in size that it is only when 

 the sea has swept away their slopes or when the lime burner has at- 

 tacked their sides that we get an insight into the mysteries of their in- 

 terior, and even then there is little to be obtained and but few uncertaiu 

 data given upon which to base a calculation. By far the greater mass 

 of these heaps is composed of shells, bones of mammals and birds, ashes, 

 charcoal, and thin layers of soil. Scattered throughout the heap how- 

 ever there are quantities of broken pottery and near the top, a few ob- 

 jects of stone, and numerous implements of bone or shell. 



The accompanying diagram represents a section of a shell-heap at Cedar 

 Keys, Fla., formed by cutting through the center of a mound to open a 

 street. This may be considered a fair representation of the interior of 

 all shell-heaps with the exception of the unusually thick stratum of soil 

 near the center of the mass. From this it will be seen that the pottery 

 is pretty uniformly distributed throughout the heap from the bottom to 

 the top and is generally in small fragments, most probably pieces of pots 

 and utensils accidentally broken during the ordinary culinary opera- 



