170 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



ment of polished stone, perforated at either corner of one side, while the opposite 

 margin curved slightly upward and inward, as seen in Fig. 39. 



Andrew E. Douglass, Esq., has called our attention to the fact that this curi- 

 ous ornament is made from the blade of a double-bladed ceremonial, doubtless ren- 

 dered useless through fracture. He informs us that a similar ornament was found 

 by him in a mound on Tomoka Creek, near the east coast, about 36 miles in a 

 straight line north of Thornhill Lake. 



Among the beads on this skeleton was the tooth of a shark with double perfora- 

 tion at the base, for suspension (Fig. 40). 



With the bones were fragments of charcoal. 



In the light sand layer, 6 feet from the surface, lay a skeleton badly crushed. 

 Upon the sternum, with a few small shell beads, was a pendent ornament of stone, 



similar to the one described, though somewhat 

 smaller. As the type is so unusual, we repre- 

 sent this one also in Fig. 41. 

 \ / Tubular beads of Catlinite, never exceeding 



five in number, lay with several skeletons. 



The discovery of this stone, whose source 

 of supply is Minnesota, 1 in a Florida mound 

 showing absolutely no contact with the Whites, 

 is of considerable interest, since this rock 

 is believed by some to have come into use 



Fl !^fS2SS?^ t ^Su I Irt^o th only in recent times - We believe the . larger 



mound at Thornhill Lake, in common with all 

 the more important mounds of the St. John's, to have been completed in pre- 

 Columbian times, and are, therefore, of the opinion that Catlinite was in use at a 

 period earlier than has been supposed. 



In the central portion of the smaller mound were seven bodies in anatomical 

 order. Upon the breasts of three, with shell beads, lay gorgets representing a form 

 of the double-bladed axe, differing from that found in the larger mound. Two of 

 these, about the same size, were of phosphate rock, much the worse for age ; the 

 other, probably a soft serpentine, also was in a crumbling condition from the lapse 

 of time (Figs. 42 and 43). 



REMARKS. 



In certain respects, the mounds at Thornhill Lake stand alone. In no other 

 of the river mounds has the double-bladed ceremonial been met with by us, and in 

 no mound of the State, we believe, has it been reported accompanying human 

 remains. Andrew E. Douglass, Esq., had the good fortune to find in the mound 



1 It is found also in Wisconsin and in Dakota. The reader is referred to an interesting article, 

 " Catlinite," by Edwin A. Barber, American Naturalist, Vol. XVII, page 754. 



