20 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



even at the broadest portion of the trench the surface of the base exposed had a 

 breadth of but 12 feet. 



Starting from the northern side of the mound, 13 feet from the margin of the 

 base a trench 36 feet in breadth was dug along the base a distance of 21 feet. 

 This trench when discontinued had a depth of 8 feet. In addition to these 

 trenches a great portion of the surface of the mound was dug over to a depth of 7 

 feet. 



HUMAN REMAINS. 



That Mt. Royal was erected for purposes of sepulture is beyond a doubt. In 

 every portion of the excavations, though at considerable distances apart, signs of 

 burials were met with, though meagre and incomplete. In no mound of the St. 

 John's have human remains been found so fragmentary through the ravages of 

 decay, and it is probable that traces of many burials have entirely disappeared. 

 In certain cases human remains were represented by hardened sand retaining 

 nothing but the shape. Many fragments of bones resembled moistened powder 

 and crumbled at the touch. Beyond a few crowns of teeth no remains were saved. 

 It is probable that an admixture of shell with the sand of the mound would have 

 preserved the bones to a material extent. 



FULGURS. 



While occasional drinking cups, wrought from the Fulgur perversum, have 

 been found in various mounds of the river, their occurrence has been marked by no 

 great numbers. The evenly perforated Ftdgur with ground beak, usually the carica, 

 has been met with only in Mt. Royal, where three specimens lay under undis- 

 turbed strata, and superficially in the Thursby Mound. The discovery, then, in 

 Mt. Royal of vast quantities of Fulgur s is a feature peculiar to that mound. 



These conchs were in no case shaped for use as drinking cups by the removal 

 of the columella and inner whorls, nor, with but few exceptions, did they resemble 

 the implements made by the grinding of the beak and the even perforation of the 

 body whorl above, below or above and below the shoulder, as the case may be. 

 The shells in question were seldom unbroken, having in nearly every case a frag- 

 ment knocked off, and these breaks, by a certain regularity as to their points of 

 occurrence, indicated an intentional fracture. That this fracture was made 

 through the prevailing custom that actuated the perforation, before or after comple- 

 tion, of mortuary pottery in the mounds of the St. John's there seems to be 

 little reason to doubt. 



While scattered Ftdgur s were met with in every portion of the mound, they 

 occurred in the greatest number beneath the summit pleateau and that portion of the 

 mound immediately adjacent, and were rarely found below 7 feet from the surface. 

 They were often encountered lying in actual contact in great deposits ; in one case 

 so many as 136 being found together. From the main trench 1,307 Fulgurs were 



