RECENT ACQUISITIONS. 



187 



A Water Bottle from Missouri. 



This vessel, well represented in Figs. 19, 20, has a height of 7 inches, a maxi- 

 mum diameter of 3.3 inches. It is made of clay of a light color and represents a 

 figure with a peculiar style of head-dress. The ears are pierced, as is common in 

 these effigy-bottles. The orifice is at the top. This vessel was obtained with a 

 number of rare specimens from Mr. William J. Seever, of the Missouri Historical 

 Society, who assures us that his collection was almost entirely obtained by himself 

 during field-work. This particular vessel came from near the foot of a skeleton in 

 a small mound which was the most easterly of a group known as the Richwood 

 mounds, on the Whitehead farm, Stoddard count}-, Missouri. 



The attention of the reader interested in prehistoric earthenware of Missouri 

 is called to that excellent volume " Contributions to the Archaeology of Missouri by 

 the Archaeological Section of the St. Louis Academy of Science, Part I, Pottery," 

 Salem, Mass., 1880. 



A "Banner-stone" of Shell. 

 In the swamp bordering the St. Johns river, near Volusia, Volusia county, 

 Florida, is a huge aboriginal shell-heap known as Mt. Taylor. 1 Shell from Mt. 

 Taylor is now being moved to Jacksonville for use on roads, by Mr. C. H. Curtis, of 

 Bluffton, Florida, who has at times materially aided us during our archaeological 

 work on the river. Mr. Curtis has given strict instructions to those engaged in the 

 demolition of Mt. Taylor carefully to save all objects found with the shells. We 

 have been presented by Mr. Curtis with an interesting ornament, which, he informs 

 us, was found by Albert Turner, a man in his employ, while clearing shell from 

 roots of a tree. The specimen, therefore, occupied a position near the surface. The 

 object, which is shown in Fig. 21, is a " banner-stone " of the bird-wing pattern, 



carefully made. Its length is 4.1 inches; its height, 1.4 inches; its maximum 

 thickness, .7 of an inch. The perforation, made by a circular drill, as is the case 

 with "banner-stones," has a diameter of .6 by .7 of an inch at one aperture, where 

 the drill has moved, and .6 of an inch at the other which is circular. One side of 

 the ornament is practically flat over the perforation while the other presents two 



1 For details as to Mt. Taylor see our "Certain Shell-heaps of the St. Johns river, Florida, 

 hitherto unexplored." American Naturalist, January, 1892, p. 12. 



