THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER, FLORIDA. 



31 



square, had in the center a hollow boss from which ran beaded lines to the four cor- 

 ners (Fig 15). 



Fig. 14. Plate of sheet copper (fall size). 



Fig. 16. Plate of sheet copper (full size). 



The other, oval, 2 - 5 inches by 2T2 inches had also a boss-like, perforated pro- 

 tuberance (Fig. 16). Ornaments suggesting this pattern appear in various plates of 

 Le Moyne and notably in Plate XVIII where King Outina is decorated with 

 numbers of them. 



In association with them were beads of wood 

 thinly coated with sheet copper, beads of shell and the 

 crowns of nine human molars, one premolar, one canine, 

 and one incisor. The custom of placing human teeth, 1 

 unaccompanied by other remains, with objects of copper 

 was very noticeable at Mt. Royal, where it was of fre- 

 quent occurrence. It may be suggested that in a mound 

 where human remains were so greatly affected by decay 

 other parts of the skeleton placed with the metal had 

 entirely disappeared. To this it may be said that bones 

 contiguous to copper are hardly likely to be destroyed. 

 Moreover, as we shall see later, in a low mound in the 

 pine woods of Lake County, teeth, not connected with skeletal remains, were repeat- 

 edly found in association with objects of copper, and in this mound the bones 

 were in a much better state of preservation. In but two mounds of the St. John's 

 River have we found objects of copper other than superficially, and in but two (the 

 same) did the burial of human teeth, extracted from the jaw, prevail. 



Mr. Moorehead, 2 in an Ohio mound, found a human tooth with a deposit of 

 copper beads, which " from contact with them was almost as green as the copper 

 itself." 



Fig. 15. 



Plate of sheet copper 

 ■ (full size). 



1 As a rule, but not always, crowns of the teeth alone were met with. 



2 Op. cit., page 170. 



