bwawtok] i:\Kl. K HISTORY OF THE CREEK INDIANS 349 
Shells, and beads worked out of shells, were also employed, and 
Le Moyne mentions "bracelets of fishes' teeth." ' The gold and sil- 
ver, as Laudonniere expressly states — and in this he is confirmed by 
Fontaneda were obtained from wrecked Spanish vessels hound from 
Mexico and other parts of the "Indies"' to Spain: 2 and the quantity 
among them speaks volumes for the number of disasters of this kind 
which must have taken place. 
Hawkins's chronicler describes the gold and silverfound in Florida 
at considerable length, but to much the same purport: 
Golde and riluer they want, not: Eor at the Frenehmens first comming thither they 
had the same offered them for little or nothing, Eor they receiued for a hatchet two 
pound weight of golde, because they knew no1 the estimation thereof: but thesouidiers 
being greedy of the same, « I i * 1 take it from them, giuing them nothing for it: the 
whirl) they perceiuing, that both the Frenchmen did greatly esteeme it, and also did 
rigorously deale with them, by taking the same away from them, at last would not be 
knowen they had any more, neither durst they weare the same for feare of being 
taken away: so that Bailing at their first comming, they could get none of them: and 
how they came of this gold and siluer the Frenchmen know not as yet, but by gesse, 
who hauing trauelled to the Southwest of the cape, hauing found the same dangerous, 
by means of sundry banks, as we also haue found the same: and there finding masts 
which were wracks of Spanyards comming from Mexico, iudged that they had gotten 
treasure by them. For it is most true that diners wracks haue beene made of Span- 
yards, hauing much treasure: for the Frenchmen hauing trauelled to the capeward 
an hundred and fiftie miles, did finde two Spanyards with the Floridians, which they 
brought afterward to their fort, whereof one was in a carauel comming from the Indies, 
which was cast away fourteene yeeres ago, the other twelue yeeres; of whose fellowes 
some escaped, othersome were slain by the inhabitants. It seemeth thay had esti- 
mation of their golde & siluer, for it is wrought flat and grauen, which they weare 
about their neckes; othersome made round like a pancake, with a hole in the midst, 
to boulster vp their breasts withall, because they thinke it a deformity to haue great 
breasts. As for mines either of gold or siluer, the Frenchmen can heare of none they 
haue vpon the Island, but of copper, whereof as yet also they haue not made the 
proofe, because they were but few men: but it is not unlike, but that in the maine 
where are high hides, may be golde and siluer as well as in Mexico, because it is all 
one maine. 3 
To the same origin must be attributed the "gold alloyed with 
brass, and silver not thoroughly smelted" which one of Laudon- 
niere 's lieutenants sent him from the western Timucua districts. 4 
The articles made of these, however, were without doubt worked over 
into objects such as had been manufactured out of copper already 
in pre-Columbian times. . I have made mention of the metal diadems. 
Le Moyne figures round and oval metal plates strung together 
into bands below the knee and above the biceps. Numbers of them 
| Le Moyne, Narrative, p. 2. 
* Laudonniero, Hist. Not. de la Floride,p. 6; French, Hist. Colls. La., L869, p. 170; Mem. Fontaneda, 
Bd. Smith, pp. 21-24. 
' Hakluyt, Voyages, in, pp. 615-616. 
* Le Moyne, Narrative, p. 8. 
