NETS. ■ 155 



Nets. — I am not aware that remains of nets, to which the term " prehistoric" 

 can be applied, are in any of the collections in the United States, for causes 

 tending to their preservation, as in the case of the Swiss lacustrine.woven fabrics, 

 do not seem to have operated in this country. A few meshes of net, however, 

 are said to have been found, with other articles, in the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. 

 The reference occurs in a note accompanying a number of these objects (includ- 

 ing the net-fragment) sent by Mr. Gratz, formerly the owner of the Mammoth 

 Cave, to Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, of New York. The note is thus worded : — 



" There will be found in this bundle two mocasons, in the same state they 

 were when dug out of the Mammoth Cave, about two hundred yards from its 

 mouth. Upon examination, it will be perceived that they are fabricated out of 

 different materials ; one is supposed to be made of a sjiecies oi Jlag^ or lily, which 

 grows in the southern parts of Kentucky ; the other, of the bark of some tree, 

 probably i\\e pappaw. 



" There are, also, in this packet, a part of what is supposed to be a kinni- 

 conecke pouch, two meshes of a fishing-net, and a piece of what we suppose to 

 be the raw material, and of which the fishing-net, the pouch, and one of the 

 mocasons are made. All of which were dug out of the Mammoth Cave, nine 

 or ten feet under ground ; that is, below the surface or floor of the cavern."* 



" This," says Professor F. W. Putnam, " is the only statement we have of 

 articles of this character being found in the Mammoth Cave, and it is veiy 

 probable that they are some of the missing articles belonging to the body found 

 in Short Cave."f He refers to the so-called " Mammoth Cave Mummy," which 

 has attracted so much attention in past years. This desiccated human body was 

 found in 1814, if not earlier, in Short Cave, situated about eight miles from 

 Mammoth Cave, and had been taken to the latter place for the purpose of 

 exhibition. Professor Putnam has established these facts in the course of inves- 

 tigations made in loco.X The body belonged formerly to the American Anti- 

 quarian Society, but is now in the National Museum. After the foregoing state- 

 ment, it is hardly necessary to add that the net-fragment is not among the articles 

 accompanying the body. 



In the earliest works on North America the fishing-nets of the Indians are 

 mentioned, but not described. Cabeza de Vaca, the first Eurojiean who gave an 

 account of the interior of the country, refers in various places, though in a 

 transient manner, to the nets of the natives whom he met during his long wan- 

 derings. The Spaniards under Pamphilo de Narvaez, after their landing in 



* Archoeologia Americana; Vol. I ; Worcester, Massachusetts, 1820 j p. 323. 



t Putnam : Archaeological Eesearches in Kentucky and Indiana, 1874; Proceedings of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History; Vol. XVII, 1875; p. 331. 

 X Ibid.; p. 321. 



