Febeuaey 7, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



205 



- There can be no doubt, therefore, that such 

 an ethno-botanic garden would stimulate greatly 

 the interest in aboriginal plants, and at the 

 same time it would be of the greatest scientific 

 value. Nothing of the kind has ever been at- 

 tempted along the lines suggested above, and 

 such a garden would soon become a Mecca for 

 those who desire to write monographs upon our 

 American plants and their uses among the ab- 

 origines. 



J. W. Harshberger. 



University of Pennsylvania. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 Certain Sand Mounds of ilorida : By Clarence 



B. Moore. 



I have elsewhere* called attention to the im- 

 portant work which Mr. Moore is doing toward 

 the elucidation of the archaeology of Florida, a 

 research to which he has given his personal 

 attention for several years. The third memoirf 

 on this subject contains the results of his field 

 work from January 16th to June 16th, 1895. 



Mr. Moore has now examined with great care 

 nearly all the earthworks of the St. Johns and 

 Ocklawaha valleys. Of this large number only 

 two were erected after white contact. That is, 

 in only two were found objects obtained from 

 the whites and placed with the original inter- 

 ments in the mounds. In several instances 

 glass beads and other manufactures of the 

 whites were found on or near the surface of a 

 mound, or with intrusive burials of recent 

 times ; and Mr. Moore shows how easily such 

 recent things might be taken as evidence of 

 recent origin of the mound in which they are 

 found. It is only by such thorough work as 

 Mr. Moore is doing that our American archaeol- 

 ogy is advanced, and it is therefore with a feel- 

 ing of satisfaction that we read the account of 

 his careful field work and follow the true 



*The Harvard Graduate Magazine of June, 1895. 



t Certain Sand Mounds of Duval County, Florida; 

 two mounds on Murphy Island, Florida; and certain 

 Sand Mounds of the Ooklavraha River, Florida. By 

 Clarence B. Moore. Journal of the Academy of Nat- 

 ural Sciences of Philadelphia, Vol. X., 1895, 4to, 108 

 pages. 91 illustrations in the text; two maps; 16 

 plates of pottery and a frontispiece illustrating a large 

 conical mound. 



archaeologist from page to page as he patiently 

 describes each mound and its contents, and 

 notes the position of every skeleton and object 

 described. 



1 The author of these memoirs takes the field 

 fully equipped for the thorough prosecution of 

 this work, and employs from twenty to forty 

 laborers under experienced guidance. He also 

 prints and illustrates his papers in a handsome 

 manner. The obj ects are well illustrated, nearly 

 always of natural size, and, what is greatly to 

 be commended, the artistic desire of the 

 draughtsman to make them look a little better 

 than the originals is not apparent here. The 

 explorer in several instances states that he 

 did not take to his collection in Philadel- 

 phia such and such potsherds or other frag- 

 mentary objects because he had many perfect 

 specimens of the same type. This is to be re- 

 gretted since every archaeologist is not so for- 

 tunate as he, and the very potsherds which he 

 discards would be treasured in many a museum, 

 particularly as Mr. Moore's work in the field is 

 so thorough that nothing is left for another in 

 the same region. Even this regret is tempered 

 when we know how liberal Mr. Moore has been 

 in supplying several museums with representa- 

 tive collections from these Florida mounds. 



It is yet too soon to draw conclusions as to 

 the peopling of Florida or as to the time when 

 these burial mounds were first formed. Wyman 

 showed by his research that many of the shell 

 mounds of the St. Johns were of great antiquity, 

 and that there were certainly two and probably 

 three phases in the life of the people who formed 

 them. From Mr. Moore' s explorations, it seems 

 likely that the sand mounds — as old as many of 

 them unquestionably are — ^belong to the later 

 period of the shell mounds, and in a few in- 

 stances come down to the time of European 

 contact. 



One of the questions not yet fully answered 

 is that of the relation of the early people of 

 Florida with other .tribes. We know that 

 among the most recent were the mixed people 

 known as the Seminoles. We also know 

 that Florida was inhabited in very early times, 

 as shown by the discoveries of Pourtal^s 

 and later by Heilprin. We can now trace 

 by the artifacts brought to light in the burial 



