60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 83 
of eight dorsal vertebree, 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- 
tebrz still in situ, indicate burial, intentional or accidental, of the 
whole body. They show no unusual features. 
R&suME 
Summarizing briefly, it may be said that the fossil human bones 
from the west coast of Florida show, somatologically, marked lke- 
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 was made by the writer, under the auspices of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology, in February, 1906. As it was apparent that 
the problems involved were 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 16 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 toward 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- 
