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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 76 



to this passageway is concealed as one approaches from the gulf, and 

 appears to be artificial. The concealed entrance extends to a clearing 

 in the forest, which is the site of the cluster of mounds on which now 

 grow cocoanut palms, alligator pears, citrus fruits, bananas, and 

 cultivated plants. The approach to one of the elevated shell heaps in 

 this secret area is shown in the accompanying figure (fig. 870). This 

 area is the farm of the Porpoise Point settlement and would well 

 repay archeological study. Several interesting shell implements were 

 picked up on the surface and shallow excavations revealed a unique 

 perforated bivalve fossil shell of unknown use. The whole collection 

 thus far made is very large, and the work of Dr. Fewkes' assistant, 

 Mr. M. W. Stirling of the U. S. National Museum, has attracted wide 

 attention. 



Profile of Eycavation in Shell Mound on Weeden Island 

 November 22,1923. 



S 5 Not cyicQvah yd- 



FiG. 90. 



The site of ]\Ir. Cushing's explorations at ]\Iarco was examined 

 with great interest under the guidance of an old resident of Marco 

 who remembered the valuable objects found there 2'^ years ago. The 

 site is now much changed, the lagoon, from the muck of which so 

 much was taken, is only a few hundred feet from the hotel; but the 

 depression in which the most of the objects were found has been 

 filled with shells leveled from nearby mounds in construction of a road, 

 and the locality does not otter great inducements for future ex- 

 ploration. 



Although it is hardly possible on such a slight acquaintance with 

 Florida archeology to properly choose the most desirable sites for 

 future work it would seem that the least known were those on the 

 Ten Thousand Islands, especially from Caxambas southward. The 

 Tampa Bay shell heaps, especially the cluster on Weeden's Island 

 (fig. 91), about six miles from St. Petersburg, present many practical 



