CERTAIN ABORIGINAL REMAINS OF THE ALABAMA RIYER. 295 



inches in diameter and 1 inch in thickness. Another is of the same size, while 

 the third has a diameter of 3.5 inches, a thickness of 1.5 inches. These two are of 

 a close-grained volcanic rock, the larger being probably porphyry. 1 



With the large bunched burial, to which we have already referred, were : two 

 undecorated, circular gorgets of shell, both badly broken ; six massive shell beads, 

 finely preserved; numerous glass beads; one small sheet copper bead; one per- 

 forated pearl, the only one met with by us in Alabama, though the chroniclers of 

 De Soto speak of their great abundance there ; one pair of ear-plugs and a single 

 one, the mate to which was doubtless overlooked by us, all of the type referred to 

 before ; two shell pins in fragments, of the ordinary type, made of the columella of a 

 marine univalve cut down for the shank with the original diameter left for the 

 head. With all these were three handsome shell pins differing from the usual 

 type, aptly described by Professor Holmes 2 as follows : " They differ from the pins 

 heretofore described, being in all cases unsymmetrical. The shaft is flat and 

 somewhat curved and joins the mushroom-shaped head near one edge. This 

 results from the peculiar shape of the portion of the shell from which the pin is 

 derived . . . ." 



Such pins have the shaft cut from the parietal wall of the shell and the head 

 from parts extending to either side of the suture, as shown in Fig. 5. 



Fig. 5.— Fulgui- showii 

 which the pin is 

 to scale.) 



Mound i 

 (Full siz 



The three pins are about equal in size, each being about 2.5 inches long with 

 diameter of head of 1.5 inches. One is shown in Fig. 6. 



All shell pins found by us have been near the skull; therefore, we believe 

 them to have been used as ornaments in the hair. 



1 All identifications of rock in this Report have been made by Dr. E. Goldsmith, of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. As we have not furnished microscopical slides from 

 the specimens, exact determination has been impossible. 



2 "Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans." Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 

 page 216, Fig. 8, PI. XXX. 



