452 CERTAIN RIVER MOUNDS OF DUVAL COUNTY, FLORIDA. 



Three feet from the surface, with a few decaying fragments of human bones, 

 were two flat pieces of fine-grained sandstone, 1 one roughly given the shape of a 

 hatchet, the other resembling a keystone — a form sometimes met with in Florida 

 mounds. With these were : a pebble about two inches in diameter ; a coarse sand- 

 stone hone ; seventeen chips of chert ; two columellas of marine univalves with part 

 of another ; a portion of the body whorl of a conch ; one incisor of a large rodent, 

 and several masses of certain fresh-water mussels — three to four dozen in all — laid 

 one within the other. These mussels, Unto Shepardianns, Lea, 2 are not reported 

 farther south than Georgia nor are any fresh-water mussels present in the tide 

 water of this portion of the St. Johns or of its tributary creeks. Moreover, the 

 mussels of the St. Johns are distinctive. These shells were doubtless an importa- 



Fig. 1.— Mussel shell used as knife. Johnson Mound. (Full size.) 



tion, and, as Fig. 1 shows, were peculiarly adapted for use as knives, for which we 

 know mussel shells to have been employed by the later Indians. 3 



Almost in the immediate center of the mound, separately, were : a tubular 

 bead of sheet copper; a fragment of sheet copper about 1 inch by 1.5 inches; a 

 minute bit of the same material, and a portion of a sheet copper ornament about 5 

 inches long with an average width of 2.5 inches. This fragment lay with human 

 remains about 4.5 feet from the surface and was too badly decayed for determina- 

 tion as to its original shape. 



Nothing in the Johnson mound gave any evidence of intercourse with the 

 Whites. 



Shields Mound. 



The Shields mound, near Newcastle, in section 35, township 1, has been briefly 

 'noticed by us in our Report on the mounds of the St. Johns, 4 where it is described 



1 The rocks from, which were made the various objects of stone, described in this paper and the 

 two succeeding ones, have been determined with care by Dr. E. Goldsmith of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, Exact determination has not been possible as, fearing to mutilate specimens, 

 we have not furnished material for microscopic slides and for chemical analysis, which the careful 

 petrologist requires. 



2 " Observations on Unio," I, Plate XIII, Fig. 38. 



% " A pair of mussel shells sharpened on a gritty stone." Heckewelder's " Indian Nations " pao- e 

 205. Cited by Holmes. l to 



" Certain Sand Mounds of the St. Johns River, Florida," Part II, Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci., Vol. X. 



