CRYSTAL RIVER REVISITED. 
By CLARENCE В. Moore. 
Crystal River, on the western coast of Florida, about twenty-five miles south 
of Cedar Keys, was visited by us in the season of 1903. Considerable work with 
interesting results was done there near the well-known, rectangular shell-mound 
about three miles from the river’s mouth. Full account of this work is given in 
our * Certain Aboriginal Mounds of the Central Florida West Coast.” ! 
By consulting the accompanying plan it will be noted that the scene of our 
investigation was an enclosure surrounded by an embankment, and that the enclo- 
sure consisted of first a level space, then much ground sloping upward and, finally, 
a well-defined mound rising above this slope. 
At our first visit, though we dug away the entire mound and a large portion 
of the sloping ground, we left a part of the latter uninvestigated. Therefore we 
revisited the place of burial near Crystal River in the winter of 1906, with the 
kind consent of Mr. R. J. Knight, of the town of Crystal River, the owner of the 
property, to whom we were indebted for permission to investigate before. 
The plan given herewith shows the embankment (C С); the level ground 
inside the embankment (D D); the slope (E E); and the mound proper (F). The 
area excavated by us at our first visit, with the exception of small portions around 
a few trees, is shown enclosed in broken line, while the part dug through at the 
time of our second visit appears in diagonal lines. 
This second investigation, as the plan shows, included all the sloping ground 
that remained, consequently the entire slope and the mound proper have been dug 
down by us. The maximum diameters of the area investigated are 150 feet 
northeast to southwest and the same distance from northwest to southeast. 
The digging was begun on the margin of the slope and was carried in at a 
depth considerably below the surface of the surrounding level ground. Тһе height 
of the mound proper above the general level was 10 feet 8 inches, and above the 
elevated ground which surrounded it, it was from 5 feet 8 inches to 6 feet 8 inches. 
Burials, almost invariably consisting of skeletons, were found by us at our 
second visit to lie as a rule under deposits of shell as we found them before. 
These deposits of shell did not extend to the surface, but lay under the superficial 
sand; and the deposits were not over single burials as a rule, but were layers 
covering a number of burials. In the southern and southeastern part of the ele- 
vated ground a layer of shell was almost continuous, and skeletons lay here and 
there beneath it. А few skeletons were found in sand apart from shell, but these 
were met with at the border of the mound proper, and probably belonged to the 
mound. When digging down this mound at our first visit we found that its con- 
! Journ. Acad. Nat. Sei. of Phila., Vol. XII. 
