A CACHE OF PENDENT ORNAMENTS. 



By Clarence B. Moore. 



During our second visit to the east coast of Florida (1896) we heard of a number 

 of beautiful pendent ornaments found there in a mound on the property of Mr. Till- 

 man of Quitman, Ga. As all reports as to the circumstances and nature of the find 

 seemed to agree, we made it a point to visit the mound, which is 

 at the union of Turkey creek with Indian river, four miles 

 below Melbourne, Brevard county. The gentleman in charge showed 

 us over the grove including the mound, and informed us that about 

 1883 a colored man found superficially in it an Indian ornament 

 of stone. The colored man told the superintendent of the property, 

 Mr. Thomas Creech, who, digging near the spot, found, together, 

 twelve or thirteen polished stone objects of a similar type, several 

 representing the carved heads of birds. The entire 'lot, we were 

 told, was disposed of to Mr. Hector, a leading citizen of Melbourne 

 and to Mr. H. McD. Spiers who subsequently moved to North 

 Carolina. The mound, we learned, had been pretty well dug into 

 subsequently without result. The ornaments, so far as we could 

 learn, were not associated with human remains. 



We then visited Fort Pierce where Mr. Spier's brother lived, 

 who furnished us with the address of the North Carolina brother. 

 We addressed a letter to this Mr. Spiers who courteously and 

 promptly replied, informing us that his pendants, including one 

 carved to represent the head of a turkey, had been given by him to 

 another brother resident in California. 



We called on Mr. Hector at Melbourne, who stated that lie 

 had from time to time parted with most of the pendants in his 

 possession. He showed us, however, three, one of which, beauti- 

 fully carved, represented the head of a duck. 

 argiiiyte. Tmkey A short time aao, upon examining part of the collection at 



creek mound, i Pull x 1 



size.) the Academy of Natural Sciences, which had not been placed on 



exhibition, through the then unpreparedness of the archaeological 



department, we found a beautiful pendant of highly polished argiiiyte x a little 



under 1.5 inches in length (Fig. 23), which we at once felt confident must have 



1 Probably an altered sedimentary. Determined by Mr. S. H. Hamilton of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences. For obvious reasons the specimen was not examined microscopically. 



