448 CERTAIN ABORIOINAL MOUNDS, APALACHICOLA RIVER. 



While sounding with an iron rod in and around the burial pits of which we 

 have spoken, a member of the party, with no particular reason, drove the rod 

 through the bright yellow sand which, as we have said, was seemingly undisturbed 

 and underlay the base of the mound. Greatly to our surprise, about 2.5 feet below 

 the level uncovered by our men, which was supposed to be the base of the mound, 

 a solid object was encountered. After much labor, including repeated use of a port- 

 able pump^ this object was found to be a beautiful chisel or hatchet, of trap rock, 9 

 inches long and about 3.5 inches in maximum breadth with a maximum thickness 

 of .8 of an inch. This implement, flat on one side, slightly convex on the other, 

 had a well-made cutting edge at the broad end. With this implement were two 

 ordinary "celts." We are at a loss to explain the presence of these objects where 

 they were found. We are loth to believe in the presence of burials beneath the 

 base, unnoticed by us, as a careful lookout was kept by the diggers who had been 

 with us mostly for long periods, and by those having the work in charge. The 

 regular burial-pits found by us, as we have said, were filled with a material differ- 

 ing from the sand into which they extended. Possibly this deposit was a ceremo- 

 nial one, or a cache made before the building of the mound. 



At the very start, all around the margin, but mainly in the S. and SE. parts 

 of the mound, sherds were met with, followed by considerable deposits of various 

 parts of broken vessels, in masses, in no case, however, having a full complement 

 of any one vessel. Near these, occasionally, were single vessels, and later, num- 

 bers of vessels together, extending in to the center of the mound — in fact, the same 

 ceremonial deposit of earthenware with which those who have looked over our re- 

 ports of the mounds of the northwest Florida coast, must be familiar. In this case, 

 however, vessels, to a certain extent, were found with burials, and the ceremonial 

 deposit, in a certain degree, was met with in parts of the mound other than those 

 we have named. 



The ware from this mound is, as a rule, inferior, though some is of excellent 

 quality, including certain bowls of black, ^^olished ware, the specialty of Mississippi, 

 which ware we had found before no f\irther eastward than Choctawhatchee bay 

 (see outline map) where it was, as in the Chipola mound, represented by a few ex- 

 amples, perhaps importations. 



Curiously enough, also, other ware from the mound, besides that we have men- 

 tioned, recalls ware belonging to more western districts in composition and in finish, 

 while the decoration, largely' made up of the scroll, resembles that described in the 

 first part of our report on the mounds of the northwest Florida coast, rather than 

 that of the second part, in which the Apalachicola coast-region is included. 



There fell to our portion as gleaners, after the wide-spread, previous digging in 

 this mound, fifty-one vessels, including whole vessels, vessels with but small parts 

 missing, and others, in fragments, where the full complement or almost the comple- 

 ment of the vessel is present. 



We shall describe in detail the most notable of these vessels. All, unless 

 otherwise described, have the usual basal mutilation made before the baking of 

 the clay. 



