CERTAIN ANTIQUITIES OF THE FLORIDA WEST-COAST. 379 



over one-half mile in diameter. It is almost entirely covered with great shell 

 deposits, including lofty peaks, graded ways, canals and the like. Rising from the 

 mangrove swamp at the edge of the northern part of the island, is a mound of 

 shell of abrupt ascent, a fraction over 27 feet in height, if measured from the level 

 of low water. Running in from the southern section of the island are two graded 

 ways enclosing a canal. These ways terminate in mounds facing each other. The 

 easternmost mound, slightly the higher, on its western side, where it rises from the 

 canal, has a slope of thirty-three degrees. Its height above the level of the bottom 

 of the canal is 18 feet 4 inches, and 22 feet 4 inches above low water level. From 

 Mr. McKinney, postmaster at Chokoloskee, and from others, we obtained an inter- 

 esting collection of artifacts, including shell pendants; shell "sinkers;" two shell 

 "celts;" a shell disc; a small "celt" of decomposed rock; a handsomely made 

 heart-shaped object of limestone, with perforation, which seems too carefully 

 wrought for use as a "sinker" and too large for a pendant (Fig. 22); two "sinkers" 

 of coral (Figs. 23, 24) ; a pendant made from a canine tooth of a large bear, probably 



Ursus floridanus, grooved for suspension (Fig. 25) ; a very rare type of implement, 

 probably of argillyte, perhaps used as a piercer (Fig. 26) ; a net "sinker" of coralline 

 limestone (Fig. 27) ; a net "sinker" of the shells of the reef-building mollusc, Ver- 

 micularia nigricans, Dall 1 (Fig. 28). 



We have found on the keys a number of perforated "sinkers" of this material, 

 but all others were of irregular outline, un worked as to the margin. 



Near the mouth of Turner's river, which enters Chokoloskee Bay in an 

 easterly direction from the key and not far from it, is a considerable shell deposit 



1 Identified by Professor Pilsbry of the Academy of Natural Sciences. 



