February *2, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



207 



This was spoken of the Johns Hoi^kins. 

 Since tlien no university has vohmtarily 

 avowed an ideal not equallj' noble and ex- 

 alted. Science, penetrating ever deeper, 

 makes clear the conditions of progress, of 

 true education, of finest teaching. 



Only those who have produced can ade- 

 quately fulfill its present motto : " I serve, 

 I help." Geokge Bruce Halsted. 



L'XIVEESITY OF TEXAS. 



THE AItCS.EOLOGY OF SOVTHERX FLORIDA 

 Through the investigations of Professor 

 Jeffries AVyman, Mr. A. E. Douglass and 

 lately of Mr. Clarence B. Moore, a large 

 amount of accurate information about the 

 mounds of central and southern Florida 

 lias been laid before the public. Especially 

 noteworthy are Mr. Moore"s explorations, 

 which have been pul)]ished with every de- 

 sirable addition of nuips, measurements and 

 illustrations. They were conducted with a 

 fidelity to the correct principles of mound 

 excavation, which renders them models of 

 tlieir kind. The results were rich, instruc- 

 tive, often surprising, such as copper breast- 

 plates and ornaments, curiously decorated 

 pottery, specimens of Catlinite, and little 

 earthern images, very life-like, of the bear, 

 sijuirrel, wildcat, and even the tapir, which 

 latter had become extinct in Florida when 

 the whites first explored it. 



Nothing, however, which has been found 

 in the mounds of Florida justify us in sepa- 

 rating them as a class fi-om other mounds in 

 the Southern States ; there is nothing in 

 them ' extra-Indian," as Jlr. H. C. Mercer 

 remarks in his review of the subject in the 

 American Naturalist for January. He might 

 have gone further and have said there is 

 nothing extra-North American Indian. The 

 pottery decoration does not reveal those 

 arabesque designs which Mr. Holmes has 

 jK)inted out in some of the more modern 

 pottery of the Gulf coast, as indicating 

 Caribbean or Antillean influence. If that 



arrived, its arrival was later than the con- 

 struction of the older Floridian mounds. 



But an obscurity certainlj- hangs over 

 tlie ethnogi-aphy of Florida at the period of 

 tlie discovery. 



A large part of the peninsula was peopled 

 by a tribe whose language stood alone on 

 the continent, the Timucuas, and which be- 

 came extinct generations ago, though fortu- 

 nately resei'ved in the works of a Spanish 

 missionary. Father Pareja. They are de- 

 scribed by the Spanish and French explorers 

 of the sixteenth century as quite a cultured 

 people, and at that time building mounds 

 and erecting their houses upon them. 



It is not certain that they extended to the 

 extreme south, and therefore this portion 

 of the peninsula is left blank on the lan- 

 guistic map of the region. That some tribe 

 of advanced culture occupied the territory 

 about tlie Carlosahatchie bay is revealed by 

 a curious discovery due to the distinguished 

 antiquary and explorer M. Alphonse Pinart, 

 which he communicated to the former pub- 

 lislier of Science. In examining a rare work 

 by Father Francisco Romero, jniljlished at 

 Milan in 1G9.3, entitled Llanio Sagrado de la 

 Aiiwrica Meridional que busca alivio en los reale.'' 

 ojox de Xue.itro Senor Don Carlos III., he found 

 the statement that a chieftain called Carlos, 

 who lived on the bay of that name on the 

 southwest coast of Florida, came across to 

 Havana in a small canoe to be instructed in 

 the Christian faith and baptized. On re- 

 turning, the autliorities promised to send a 

 missionary to his people, but neglected to 

 fulfill their agreement. 



" Some time afterward," says the writer, 

 ■' they recieved a letter \^Titten witli char- 

 acters entirely ditVerent from ours, and with 

 a strange ink. This letter was l)rought 

 across by a lisherman, who translated it. 

 He stated that the Floridian chief, Carlos, 

 sent by it his respectful liomage to the au- 

 thorities, and complained bitterly that the 

 missionary had not been sent to him.'' 



