THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER, FLORIDA. 209 



Bordering the St. John's and its tributary streams, beginning at a point a little 

 north of Palatka, and. extending to the river's source, are heaps mainly composed 

 of fresh-water shells, with a small percentage of bones of lower animals, and occa- 

 sionally of man. Many of these shell-heaps, including some of the largest, have 

 no burial mounds of sand in association ; at all events, above the surface. At all 

 depths in every shell-heap, without exception, are the remains of ancient fireplaces, 

 bearing certain testimony to the artificial origin of these heaps of shell which, 

 formed from kitchen refuse, gradually increased in size during the lapse of years. 



In certain of these shell-heaps persistent search on our part has failed to reveal 

 a single fragment of earthenware which we know to be so abundant in other of the 

 river shell-heaps, and this negative result was also reported by Professor Wyman. 

 This absence of earthenware was attributed by him to the lack of its possession by 

 the makers of such heaps, and we see no reason to differ from that conclusion. 



.It has been asserted that the absence of fragmentary earthenware can be 

 accounted for under the hypothesis that aborigines residing on the shell-heaps made 

 their pottery elsewhere ; or, even admitting its introduction, that the rude earthen- 

 ware of these people was subject to decay. To these suggestions we would reply 

 that no people habitually using earthenware, though made, else where, could form 

 and occupy great masses of shell without leaving behind numerous fragments of 

 their fragile vessels, as they have clone in the other heaps ; and that as we have 

 never in Florida met with aboriginal earthenware showing partial decay, we are 

 not inclined to the belief that the absence of pottery can be accounted for by this 

 agency. Moreover, in shell-heaps where pottery is discovered to a certain depth, 

 the lowest sherd-bearing stratum shows its earthenware to be, so far as decay is 

 concerned, in a condition equally as good as that of fragments from the upper por- 

 tions of the heap. There is absolutely no transition from strata devoid of earthen- 

 ware through others containing it in a crumbling condition, to layers of shell holding 

 the solid sherds, and this we say after seasons of work conducted under our personal 

 supervision, in our immediate presence at the excavation, with a corps of trained 

 assistants to examine every object brought to light, and to submit the same to us, 

 and in not one single instance have oar conclusions been arrived at from the reports 

 of others as to discoveries made during our absence. 



In comparatively recent times races have been met with to whom the manu- 

 facture of pottery was an unknown art, and we see no inherent reason why to the 

 early savages of the Peninsula we should not attribute an equal ignorance. 



We do not assert that the art of manufacture of earthenware was self-taught 

 to the makers of the shell-heaps, acquired by the slow process of evolution, since 

 we ai"e in possession of no data for or against ; but we do say, and we are fully 

 convinced, that there was a time when the men of the earlier shell-heaps did not 

 include earthenware among their possessions. It seems not unlikely that the art of 

 pottery making was brought by a more advanced people, and that the abundant 

 sherds of certain shell-heaps prove such heaps of a later date. 



In refuse heaps fragmentary objects alone can be expected, though from time 



