CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE NW. FLORIDA COAST. 217 



and W., approximate!}'. The height is about 2 feet. Nearb}' is a shell-field while 

 a shell-heap of considerable size is distant about 75 yards in an ENE. direction. 



Ten excavations in various parts of the mound yielded no result other than to 

 show the mound to have been built of sand on a base of shell, presumably as a place 

 of abode. 



Cemetery Mound, Afalachicola, Franklin County. 



This mound, in Magnolia Cemetery at Apalachicola, about 5 feet high, was 

 demolished by us, with the courteous permission of the City Council. 



The mound, the usual truncated cone, was composed of white sand in places 

 and of grayish sand in others, with oyster-shells centrally, near the base. 



The mound, which had sustained much previous digging, seemingly, contained 

 but two whole skeletons and three others from which parts had been cut away. 



Unassociated, was a circular ear-plug of lime rock, covered with sheet copper on 

 one side, with a diameter of 1.0 inches, of the type figured by us in a former report 

 as coming from Mt. Royal, Fla. 



In midden refuse, near the base, was a bone pin about 8 inches long and from the 

 same deposit, as a rule, came a number of sherds, undecorated or bearing the check 

 stamp. 



Pierce Mounds, near Apalachicola, Mound A. 



The Pierce Mounds, fiAe in number, lie from 1 mile to 1.5 miles to the west- 

 ward of Apalachicola, on property belonging to Mr. Alton Pierce of that place. 



Mound A, the southwesternmost of the group, which had undergone but insig- 

 nificant previous digging, had at base a diameter of 96 feet E. and W. and 76 feet N. 

 and S. The diameters of the summit plateau in the same directions respectively 

 were 40 feet and 34 feet. The plateau, however, had been much broadened and the 

 height of the mound somewhat reduced to prepare for interments made in recent 

 times. The height of the mound which was completely demolished by us, was 8 

 feet. 



The body of the mound was of yellow sand, the basal portion being of sand dis- 

 colored by fire and by organic matter, often mixed with oyster-shells. There was no 

 regular stratification, but irregular layers of oyster-shells were present throughout, in 

 places. 



Throughout the mound it was noted that the great majority of burials lay in 

 shell, but it seemed to us that this was owing to the fact that the majority of burials 

 were well down toward the base where the shell was, rather than that the association 

 was intentional. Such burials as were higher in the mound usually lay in the sand. 



As the mound was practically undisturbed at our coming, data as to burials were 

 taken with great care. The relative position of the ninety-nine found by us, which, 

 however, stand for a much greater number of skeletons, is shown in the plan (Fig. 

 154). We may say here, and it applies to all other mounds opened by us, that 

 when enough of a bone remains to make its identification certain, we often speak of it 

 as present, for the reason that it was there when the burial took place. Also, when 

 we write of.skeletons in mounds, we do not wish to implj' that these skeletons were 



28 JOUEN. a. N. S. PHILA., VOL. XII. 



