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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



tions at these localities, ^Ir. Collins continued westward to Pecan 

 Island in the southern part of Vermillion Parish where he remained 

 for three weeks. 



Pecan Island, lying hetween White Lake and the Gulf, is a long- 

 narrow strip of land, averaging less than 200 yards in width, and 

 extending across the marsh for fifteen miles in a general east and 

 west direction. It is the same type of formation as Grand Chenier 

 and other narrow parallel ridges of land found in the marsh region 

 which have resulted from storm wave action throwing up old beach 

 material such as sand and fine'y crushed shell. Pecan Island today 



Fig. 199. — Mound on tlie property of Mr. Ulysses Veazey, Pecan Island, 



Vermillion Parish, La. 



supports a population of some 400 people, whose only means of com- 

 munication with the outside world is by the mail boat which makes the 

 57-mile trip from Abbeville once a week. That it was also inhabited 

 by Indians at an early date is shown by the presence of 21 artificial 

 mounds and considerable quantities of potsherds and other surface 

 refuse on the island. These mounds proved to be of two distinct 

 groups, those on the property of Mr. J. Morgan, four in number, 

 being the larger, with an average basal diameter of over 100 feet 

 and a height ranging from five to twenty-five feet. These four mounds 

 were stratified, with several thick layers of crushed shell and sand 

 (the material of which the island is largely composed) separated l)v 

 thin strata of soil mixed with charcoal, animal bones and other debris. 



