CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS, MOBILE BAY. 287 
MOUND NEAR STARKES WHARF, BALDWIN County. 
Starke’s wharf is on the northeastern part of Mobile bay. 
About one-half mile in a N. by W. direction, a little back from the bay, is an 
abandoned settlement. Within the limits of this settlement was a mound of sand, 
5 feet 6 inches in height and about 64 feet across its circular base, on property be- 
longing to Mr. George H. Hoyle, of Battle's, Alabama. 
The mound, which was somewhat spread, had undergone previous digging to 
the extent of a narrow but deep hole in the center, part of which had been filled 
again. The mound was entirely leveled by us. 
In surface-material were two glass beads and a bit of sheet-lead, found sep- 
arately. At the bottom of the previous excavation, beneath several feet of sand, 
was the iron blade of a spade. А beginner, misled by this discovery, might readily 
assign an unduly late origin to the mound. 
In the outer part of the mound no burials were met with. At some distance 
from the margin lay the decaying remnants of a skull with a hone of ferruginous 
sandstone. There is an outcropping of this rock on the shore of the bay, not far 
from the mound. 
When the mound, which was surrounded by diggers, had been reduced to 
diameters of 28 and 37 feet, various burials were met with and continued to be 
found until the center of the mound was reached,—one at 18 inches, some at 2.5 
feet, but usually from 3.5 to 5 feet, from the surface. Two burials lay 6 feet down. 
All bones were in the last stage of decay, being mere fragments which crumbled 
under pressure. Burials were as follows: 
Lone skulls—10. 
Skull with two fragments of femur—1. 
Two skulls with a fragment of femur—1. 
Skull with a few fragments of other bone—1. 
Bunched burials, three with one skull, one with two skulls—4. 
Two femurs together—1. 
Two tibi: together—1. 
Crumbling fragments—6. 
Comparatively few artifacts lay with the burials. With a few fragments of 
bone was mica, to which, seemingly, had been given the outline of a spearhead. 
With a bunched burial were a bit of chert and a triangular fragment of pottery. 
A lone skull had with it mica, ferruginous sandstone, and yellow, paint-like 
material, probably limonite. 
With two femurs was a fragment of pottery of considerable size, and in several 
cases in this mound, in the same way, a part of a vessel apparently did duty for 
the whole. қ 
Charcoal was associated with a number of burials. Two tibiæ lay beneath a 
layer 20 inches wide, 27 inches long, and 1 to 2 inches in thickness. l 
Singly, and apart from human bones, though it is quite possible that burials 
with which some of them had been had disappeared through decay, were one ham- 
