18 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



below the common level and the earth thrown up on each side, making a bank 

 of about two feet high." 



The good Quaker bemoans the change wrought since a former visit by the 

 felling of the trees, but adds that " the late proprietor had some taste as he has 

 preserved the mount and this little adjoining grove inviolate." 



In an unpublished manuscript, cited by Squier and Davis, 1 the younger Bar- 

 tram again refers to Mt. Royal : 



" The vast mounds upon the St. John's, Alachua, and Musquito Rivers," he 

 writes, "differ from those among the Cherokees, with respect to their adjuncts and 

 appendages, particularly in respect to the great highway or avenue, sunk below the 

 common level of the earth, extending from them, and terminating either in a vast 

 savanna or natural plain, or an artificial pond or lake. A remarkable example 

 occurs at Mt. Royal, from whence opens a glorious view of Lake George and its 

 environs." He goes' on to describe by the aid of a little sketch the highway 

 and mound, making the latter 40 feet in perpendicular height. (His father, years 

 before, by an estimate of half that amount, had come nearer the truth). "What 

 may have been the motive for making this pond I cannot conjecture," he continues, 

 " since the mound and other vestiges of the ancient town are situated close on the 

 banks of the river St. Juan. It could not, therefore, be for the convenience of 

 water. Perhaps they raised the mound with the earth taken out of the pond." 



In 1872, Professor Jeffries Wyman visited Mt. Royal while engaged in his 

 researches among the shell heaps of the St. John's. 3 The avenue to the lake was 

 then overgrown with forest trees. 



These forest trees have now been largely cleared away, leaving here and there 

 a scattering pine, and the ground has been under cultivation. The avenue is still 

 readily traceable, though its point of union with the mound is no longer visible. 

 Its course is north about half a mile to the pond, where water lilies were in flower 

 at the time of our visit. It consists of a depression from twelve to twenty yards 

 in width at different points, between embankments of sand with an average height 

 of 2 - 5 feet, and 12 feet in breadth. 



SIZE AND COMPOSITION OF MOUND. 



Mt. Royal has been under cultivation 4 and consequently by the wash of the 

 summer rains a considerable quantity of sand from the sides has so raised the level 

 of the territory immediately surrounding, that measurements taken from the appar- 

 ent base to the summit are diverse and misleading. Its true height from the sum- 

 mit plateau to the base, as shown by measurement at the center of the mound, is 



1,1 Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee, Country 

 the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws," Dublin, 

 1793, page 9.7. 



2 " Ancient Monuments of the Mifs r ssippi Valley," page 122, et seq. 



3 " Fresh Water Shell Mounds of the St. John's River, Florida," page 40. 



^William P.Wright, Esq-, of Drayton Island, informs us that the entire mound has been ploughed over. 



