THE NORTHWESTERN FLORIDA COAST REVISITED. 577 
aboriginal sites. Doubtless, however, fifty years ago prehistoric objects were 
plentiful enough here on the surface and in the furrows. 
In 1911 we visited the Transylvania group of mounds and were much im- 
pressed with the height of one (Mound B). On our return (the winter of 1917) 
to survey the site, the members of the party who had seen the mound before were 
nonplussed to find it of much more modest proportions than they had supposed 
it to be, and were far from flattered at their apparent inability to estimate heights. 
Later, however, Mr. J. A. Helgason, son of one of the owners of the estate, 
informed us that in 1912 a force of men and teams ordinarily used in work on the 
levees, had been transferred to Mound B, whose height had been reduced thereby 
about 20 feet to supply material to construct a causeway leading from the ground 
to the present top of the mound, to enable stock to reach the summit in case of 
serious overflow from the river, the sides of the mound having become almost per- 
pendieular through wash of rain. Incidentally Mr. Helgason said that some 
pottery in fragments had been found during the work. 
In but two of the mounds was there considerable area of summit plateau 
intact, namely on Mound D, where the clay had an unpromising appearance 
and where trial-holes were unsuccessful, and on Mound C, where the soil was 
dark in shade and was interspersed with small masses of clay reddened by fire 
to a depth ranging between 3 and 4 feet. 
Here three burials were found, all reached by one trial-hole, one flexed and 
two extended on the back, the flexed burial having two vessels in association. 
One, a bowl of excellent black ware having a small, flat, circular base, bears an 
incised decoration of fair execution. This bowl lay inverted over another, of 
inferior ware, having scanty, incised lines by way of ornament. 
The upper bowl, only an average example of the excellent pottery of the 
lower Mississippi valley, which at its best includes specimens excelling in quality 
of ware, in grace of form, and in beauty of incised decoration, has been presented 
to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York City. 
