116 EARTHENWARE OF 



although it may have entered by way of Cuba or the Bahamas. It is the most 

 general use of this method of ornament known, but represents a much lower grade 

 of development than the stamped work of more southern countries. It is, how- 

 ever, much in advance of the practices of the more northern tribes who employed 

 various improvised stamps to manipulate and diversify the surface of their earthen- 

 ware. 



Gulf Coast Group. — Prominent among the Gulf coast groups of ware is a 

 variety typically developed in the region of Pensacola. It is characterized by 

 varied and symmetric forms, gritty but fine-grained paste and tasteful incised pat- 

 terns including the current scroll, the latter being treated in cases exactly as in the 

 midden ware of Tick Island. No typical examples of this pottery have been found 

 on the St. John's, but traces of its peculiar characters occur in a number of cases. 



WARES DESCRIBED BY STATION OR LOCALITY. 



The collections to be considered represent localities distributed along the St. 

 John's from Palatka on the north to Lake Washington on the south, a distance of 

 upwards of 100 miles. They were derived from midden shell deposits, from sand 

 mounds and to a slight extent from camp and village sites on or near the river. For 

 convenience of description and reference the pottery of each station or locality will 

 be presented separately. 



Dunns Creek Mound- — The Dunn's Creek sand mound, the lowest and most 

 northern station represented in the collection, furnished a considerable series of ves- 

 sels and fragments of vessels covering a wide range of material form and decoration, 

 but nearly all of the specimens are of the well-known varieties found in mounds 

 and on village sites over a large part of the State. Articles of European origin were 

 associated with many of the burials. 



Among the best preserved pieces are a number of bowls, mostly of small size 

 belonging to the ordinary earthenware of the Florida region, characterized in this 

 section by alight yellowish gray surface, dark interior paste, fine grain and low specific 

 gravity. This variety of ware is generally finished with a stamp though sometimes 

 incised. The bowls or cups are shallow or deep and have upright, expanding or 

 contracting rims which are scalloped, notched or otherwise embellished. In one 

 case the lip is thickened and prolonged in heavy projections on opposite sides. 

 Usually the bottom has been perforated subsequent to baking. The ruder pieces 

 of this ware, Figs. 2 and 3, PI. Ill, seem to connect it with the remarkably rude, 

 extemporized pottery of which so many specimens have been collected by Mr. 

 Moore. A good example of the latter ware is presented in Fig. 1, PL III. It is 

 so rude that we are hardly justified in calling it a vessel, although it has a rudely 

 excavated cavity or bowl. The fresh looking surface is light yellowish gray in color 

 and the soft, brittle paste where broken is a deep black. The rim projects considerably, 

 is scalloped on the edge like the corolla of a flower and has deeply incised decora- 

 tive lines on the upper surface. The body is long and roundly conical and is encir- 

 cled by four petal like figures relieved by removing the clay from the interspaces to 



