360 CERTAIN ANTIQUITIES OF THE FLORIDA WEST-COAST. 



that the shell deposit at Indian Hill exceeds in height any in the State, though 

 considerably greater altitudes for other sites have been given by writers who base 

 their assertions upon estimate. In Fig. 4 we give a photograph showing the great 

 deposit at Indian Hill, extending completely across the background of the picture, 

 with the house of the owner of the island, Mr. F. B. Walker, occupying the west- 

 ernmost extremity of the heap. Unfortunately, it is beyond the power of the 

 camera to shoAV the slope or comparative height of mounds owing to undue promi- 

 nence given to the foreground. 



Close to the great shell heap is another, also of shell, very symmetrical, with 

 upward slope of 28 degrees, in places. This mound, shown in the photograph in 

 front of the greater heap, oblong with rounded corners, extends 76 feet in a N. E. 

 and S. W. direction. Its minor diameter is 55 feet ; its height above the general 

 level of the surrounding shell is 12 feet 4 inches. At the S. W. end of the mound 

 a trench was run in from the margin 21 feet, converging from 41 feet at the begin- 

 ning to 20 feet at the end. The mound was built of layers of small oyster shells 

 and strata of crushed shell and blackened debris. During the excavation, human 

 remains were met with at seventeen points and in other places while caving the 

 sides of the excavation at the end. No remains lay at a depth greater than 4 feet, 

 while the majority were just beneath the surface. With three exceptions the 

 burials consisted of parts of disarranged skeletons. Two skeletons lay much flexed, 

 on the side ; the other, face down and partly Hexed. No artifacts were with the 

 remains. 



At one end of this mound lay numbers of small shells {Strombtcs piigilis) with 

 two perforations for a handle, in the body whorl below the periphery and much 

 chipped and worn at the beak. These and similar shells, lying here and there over 

 the entire deposit, had doubtless served as hammers, probably to open shell-fish 

 for food. 



In a southerly direction, along the east shore of Tampa Bay, is Terraceia 

 Island, Manatee Co. On this island (see map), on the property of Mr. L. W. 

 Johnson, is a low irregular mound, in which were found a few flexed burials 

 without artifacts. 



About 150 yards N. N. W from this mound is a shell deposit, with the usual 

 ridge leading to it. 



On property of Dr. L. R. Warren, of Braidentown, Florida, not far from the 

 other remains on Terraceia Island, is a large oblong mound running north and 

 south, with the usual graded way leading to it. 



Up the Manatee river, Manatee Co., near Erie P. 0., are three small mounds, 

 on properties belonging to Messrs. L. P. Foy and Louis Brubacher, in which were 

 found only a few scattered bones. 



On the southern extremity of Cow Point Island, Sarasota Bay, Manatee Co., 

 on property of Mr. C. W. Thigpen, are an aboriginal shell deposit and two low 

 burial mounds, in which were present closely flexed burials without artifacts. 



