F< ee 
Fore 
ie 
On the Gnathodon beds around the head of Mobile Bay. 169 
have selected them in a special manner, as burying places for 
their dead—for this and perhaps also for some other reasons, they 
ecame places of resort, and the receptacles not only of human 
remains, but of various kinds of superstitious relics, spoils of 
hunting, also of various fragments resulting from certain kinds 
of artificial operations which they found convenient to practice 
in these places. The different sorts of objects here alluded to, 
have been distinctly traced, as they occur in the original mass of 
organic remains. 
n remains are somewhat abundant in certain deposits, 
but generally in a very broken state. Fragments of pottery are 
was ascertained that the natives make special use of these par- 
ticular shells for the manufacture of ornaments for the neck. 
Coal and ashes must also have been produced by their fires; but 
the latter can seldom be detected, having disappeared by mixing 
with the shells, and the former is seldom distinguishable from 
the carbonized wood which abounds. 
The following facts selected from many of like nature, may 
be presented as a refutation of the notion respecting Indian 
agency in the formation of the beds in question. ‘There are 
n . 
_ gence; the clear proofs of their natural stratification, and espec- 
: ially the general occurrence of immature and minute species, 
‘Scattered through the mass, all which is quite unaccountable if 
Considered as the effect of Indian labor. 
Szconp Series, Vol. XI, No. $2.—March, 1851. 29 
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