CERTAIN ANTIQUITIES OF THE FLORIDA WEST-COAST. 355 



Mound on Pine Key, Hillsboro County. 



Pine Key is one of the islands at the entrance to Tampa Bay. The mound 

 described by Mr. Walker, is on the southernmost portion of Pine Key, which is 

 divided into two parts by a small bayou. The mound, which is most difficult to 

 find, being surrounded by trees and scrub growth, is about 300 yards in an E. S. E. 

 direction from the southern end of a sheet of water called the Duck Pond, or about 

 50 yards in an easterly direction from a tongue, or continuation extending beyond 

 the end of the lake. The tongue, itself apparently of artificial origin, is connected 

 with the mound by a canal of irregular breadth, nowhere exceeding 58 feet, which, 

 leaving the tongue at right angles, goes directly to the mound. The canal, at the 

 present time, is not over 2 feet 3 inches in depth, though banks on either side make 

 it appear considerably more. 



The mound, which is ver}^ irregular, varies from 60 feet to 85 feet in diameter 

 of base and is about 6 feet in height, taken from the general level. Deep depres- 

 sions near parts of the base show whence the material for the mound was derived. 



A number of small and shallow excavations were apparent. 



Seven of our men dug 3.5 hours on parts of the mound previously undisturbed. 

 The mound is made of unstratified white sand. Burials were met with at six points 

 from 1 foot below the surface to 6 feet in depth. These burials were closely flexed 

 in a manner to be described more particularly in our account of a mound on the 

 Little Manatee river. With one burial were a number of massive beads of shell. 

 With others were bits of earthenware vessels having incised and punctate decoration. 



Mounds near Point Pinelos, Hillsboro County. 



Point Pinelos is the southernmost extremity of the peninsula which bounds 

 Tampa Bay on the west. On the property of Mr. Wm. B. Henderson, of Tampa, 

 about three-quarters of a mile in from Point Pinelos, following a course N. W. by 

 W., is an oblong mound with rounded corners, extending longitudinally almost due 

 east and west. Its major diameter of base is 155 feet; its minor diameter, 47 feet. 

 The summit plateau is 105 feet in length and 30 feet across at the center. Each 

 extremity of the plateau is 19 feet across. Mr. S. T. Walker (Smithsonian Report, 

 1879, p. 407) gives this mound as No. 10 on his list, and gives the height as 25 

 feet. The exact altitude above the surrounding level is 16 feet 6 inches, and above 

 the mass of sand which surrounds the base, 12 feet 6 inches. From the summit 

 plateau to undisturbed sand at the base of the mound is a depth of 17 feet. 

 The sides of the mound are precipitous, ascending at an angle of 30 degrees. 



A graded way extends from the exact center of the southern side of the 

 summit plateau almost due south, a distance of 112 feet. This causeway, made of 

 sand with a sprinkling of shell, is 34 feet broad at its union with the mound and 

 23 feet across, 12 feet from its terminus. 



The labor of seven men working five hours on a trench beginning 46 feet from 

 the western end of the north side of the mound indicated the mound to be of 



