70 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



the hurricanes. Here and there would be found 

 low, shapeless mounds overgrown with thick, 

 tropical scrub. Should this scientific explorer 

 proceed to excavate he might unearth a lower jaw 

 of a white man and the skull of a low-type negro. 

 He and other learned scientists would probably 

 write profound papers on this wonderful find, 

 putting the two together and wondering that a 

 man with a low, retreating forehead should have 

 such a high type of jaw. If the archfeologist 

 should dig down and find broken glass and iron- 

 stone chinaware, he would conclude that the 

 Miamians had some knowledge of art, but should 

 he happen to make his excavation in the back 

 yard of a restaurant and unearth a quantity of 

 oyster and clam shells he might be convinced 

 that they were of a low type that subsisted on 

 shellfish. 



One bit of evidence furnishes a clue to the 

 amount of time elapsed since these mound builders 

 vanished, and it indicates that their depart- 

 ure took place a long time ago. As I have al- 

 ready said there is little or no natural land in 

 the Ten Thousand Islands region that rises above 

 an extreme high tide. This would indicate that 



