246 CERTAIN SAND MOUNDS OF 



nature of the alloy present in the coins and in the mound specimens respectively 

 would have to be determined by chemical process. 



As the reader has probably concluded by this time nothing definite as to metals 

 can be learned without analysis. 



Earthenware. — While the State of Florida is not blessed with a sufficiency of 

 stone from which to shape its implements, abundance of material for the manufac- 

 ture of earthenware exists throughout the State, the present county of Clay taking 

 its name from argillaceous deposits. 



It is not probable that any considerable amount of earthenware was imported 

 into Florida, the types of many of its vessels being too distinct, and the method 

 of manufacture of the majority inferior to that which characterizes the earthenware 

 of other localities. In the northern portion of the river territory are occasional 

 sherds bearing the complicated stamped ornamentation of Georgia and Carolina, 

 and this ware is, we believe, always of that gritty character which is so unusual in 

 the ordinary river pottery. Decoration of this character does not occur, so far as 

 we have been able to determine, farther south on the river than Dunn's Creek, 

 about ten miles above Palatka. 



Cord marked pottery of gritty ware, occasionally met with in the down-river 

 mounds, has been found superficially so far south as Mt. Royal. 



A part of the earthenware of the river, however, was subject to outside influ- 

 ence, and occasionally we recognize types belonging to the pottery of Missouri and of 

 Arkansas, and, upon one or two occasions, of the Gulf States. On the whole, how- 

 ever, the earthenware of Florida is more of its kind than is any other of its abo- 

 riginal productions. 



With the exception of two mounds on Murphy Island, the terms of whose 

 owner we have not seen fit to accept, no sand mounds of importance border the 

 St. John's that have not been investigated by us. We are aware that the virtual 

 demolition of a mound is the only method to form a final conclusion, and we can 

 but hope that at some future time circumstances may make it possible for the 

 archaeologist to know the contents and composition of the two great mounds near 

 Mill Cove and of the mound at Bluffton. We are of the opinion that no extended 

 notice of the river mounds can ever again be written, and we sincerely hope that 

 others may be induced to take up and to publish reports of the mounds of the east 

 coast, of the west coast, and of the interior, that the archaeology of Florida may be 

 redeemed from the obscurity that has hitherto characterized it. 



