CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE NW. FLORIDA COAST. 177 



ments in this mound, had a left femur which had sustained fracture at an early 

 period and had united with little inconvenience to the subject, an occurrence some- 

 what out of the usual run in aboriginal times, judging from other fractures found by 

 us in mounds. This femur was sent to the United States Army Medical Museum, 

 Washington, D. C. 



With one or two burials in the mound were parts of human bones, some dis- 

 colored by fire, some charred and one or two calcined, but this evidence of the use 

 of fire in no case extended to the entire burial, nor even to a considerable part of it, 

 making it evident that cremation had not been practised, but rather the use of fire, 

 ceremonially, which had occasionally burned a small portion of the bones. 



Of artifacts in the mound there were, exclusive of earthenware, a mass of rock 

 about twice the size of a closed hand, having on one side a pit 2.5 inches in depth 

 and about 1.5 inches in diameter, and on the other side three small pits and a con- 

 cave area produced by wear; a mass of lead sulphide, pitted on one side, evidently 

 by use as a hammer; two graceful celts, one found with a burial, the other in caved 

 sand ; thirty-seven pointed columellte of large marine univalves, found with a 

 burial. 



There were also in caved sand a small fragment of sheet copper badly carbon- 

 ated, and a piece of sheet copper about 7 inches square, broken on three sides, 

 which had formed part of a square or oblong ornament with a central perforation 

 surrounded by punctate markings. The margin of the sheet had been carefully 

 turned over and hammered down. On the metal were traces of a vegetable fabric 

 in which the bones, which the copper accompanied, had been wrapped. 



The copper, analyzed by Prof. Harry F. Keller, Ph.D., contained small quanti- 

 ties of iron and a faint trace of silver. Lead, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, nickel, 

 etc., were entirely absent. This copper, then, is native copper, of a purity above 

 that of any copper made from the sulphide ores found in Europe, especially in 

 former times. 



Incidentally we may say it is now eight years since we made public in the 

 second part of our " Certain Sand Mounds of the St. Johns River, Florida," results 

 of many careful analyses of native copper and of copper from the mounds, and 

 showed chemically that most of the copper of tlie mounds could not have been pro- 

 duced in Europe, but was native copper, hammered out from nuggets or masses by 

 the aborigines. These conclusions were accepted, we believe, by all who do not 

 prefer an unsupported opinion to weight of evidence. At all events, no effort has 

 been made, based on analyses, to controvert our deductions. 



The Davis Point mound was filled with roots of the palmetto, doubly destruc- 

 tive to earthenware in that, while tearing it apart themselves, they compel from the 

 investigator heavy blows of axe and spade, fatal to neighboring earthenware. This 

 fact and the aboriginal custom to break vessels and scatter their parts throughout 

 the mound, which markedly had prevailed in this mound, made it so that but three 

 vessels were taken out unbroken, even as to parts unaffected by basal perforation. 

 This is especially to be regretted as the ware of this mound, if we exclude the check- 



23 JOURN. A. N. S. PHILA., VOL. XII. 



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