60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 33 



of eight dorsal vertebrae, a number of ribs, and a remnant of the 

 sternum. All of these bones are plainly parts of a single adult, 

 apparently male skeleton, and their relative positions, with the ver- 

 tebrso still in situ, indicate burial, intentional or accidental, of the 

 whole body. They show no unusual features; 



RESUME 



Summarizing briefly, it may be said that the fossil human bones 

 from the west coast of Florida show, somatologically, marked like 

 ness to recent Indian bones, and not a single feature indicative of 

 a zoologically lower or otherwise substantially different type of 

 humanity. The anthropological evidence of these bones as to any 

 considerable geological antiquity must be regarded, therefore, as 

 wholly negative. 



The above decisive results of somatological examination when con 

 trasted with the fossilized condition of the Osprey bones suggested 

 the desirability of an exploratory visit to the locality, and such a 

 visit w r as made by the writer, under the auspices of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, in February, 1906. As it was apparent that 

 the problems involved w T ere largely geological, the Director of the 

 U. S. Geological Survey was requested to detail a geologist familiar 

 with the Florida formations to accompany the writer in the explora 

 tion. The request was kindly granted and Dr. T. Wayland Vaughan 

 was assigned to this duty. His interesting report is embodied in sub 

 sequent pages. 



Osprey was found to be a very small settlement on the little Sara- 

 sota bay, about 12 miles south of the town of Sarasota and about 70 

 miles south of Tampa. Mr. Webb s property lies on and at the base of 

 a promontory which projects westward nearly half a mile into the bay. 

 For about one-third of a mile along the southern shore of this prom 

 ontory runs a well-preserved artificial shell mound. This mound com 

 mences near the point and reaches an elevation of from 15 to 1C feet, 

 with a maximum breadth of about 125 feet. Mr. Webb s main house 

 stands in the middle of the widest and highest part of the mound, 

 which is truncated or platform-like. From this point the mound 

 diminishes in width toAvard the mainland and eventually tapers off to 

 a point. Before the shell heap was erected the promontory was very 

 low, and it seems that the pile may have been raised gradually by the 

 aborigines for the purpose of giving a high and dry location for their 

 dwellings. The structure consists entirely of closely packed shells of 

 different sizes, all of existing species. Many of the inner shells of the 

 mound show but slight traces of decay and not a few still preserve in 

 large part their color. In the course of earlier excavations in this 

 mound, undertaken by Mr. Norman Spang, it was found that old fire- 



