Pe ASAE Sats PO oe OA a RUE ee SI SOLE fie cL SO eR net ee TR TSE Mar ek, SSRN Pe el OLE eee eae ne ae 
1876.] — Recent Literature. 169 
mounds extended through very long periods of time and were the result 
of very slow accumulation, or that the shells existed formerly in much 
greater quantities than now.” Granting the probability of the latter 
supposition, the former seems much the more reasonable, and every fact 
discovered with reference to these mounds strengthens the probability, if 
we must so limit it, of the great age of these traces of a perished race. 
It is a curious fact that stone implements “were seldom met with in 
making excavations in the shell-mounds,” inasmuch as we associate them 
with all early traces of human occupancy of any locality; but some few 
specimens were met with, and we recognize them to be such paleolithic 
forms as characterize the French bone caves (see Reliquie Aquitanice) 
and even those of an earlier date, since some are mentioned by the author 
as “resembling somewhat the celts of the St. Acheul pattern.” The 
figures on Plate II., especially 1, 2, and 7, are also identical in form with 
the rude implements from the river gravels of the Delaware Valley 
(New Jersey), as comparison with specimens in the Cambridge museum 
will show. Here again we have an undoubted indication of the antiq- 
uity of the shell-mounds, and of their pre-Indian origin. Of the pot- 
. tery it is remarked that fragments “exist in the later but not in the old- 
est mounds.” This would indicate an acquirement of the knowledge of 
utilizing clay for making cooking-vessels while the mounds were in course 
of construction, or accumulation, and certainly the specimens from the 
mounds figured Plate V., figs. 3, 4, 5, and 6, are of the very rudest de- 
scription, and less elaborate in ornamentation than much of the ware 
made by the Indians of the more northern and western States. Pro- 
fessor Wyman remarks that “a comparison of the pottery from the shell- 
heaps of the St. John’s with that from other parts of Florida shows the 
‘mportant fact that they have but little similarity.” 
esides descriptions of stone implements and those of bone and of 
shell, admirable chapters on pottery, human remains, traces of cannibalism, 
flattened tibiæ, and allied subjects, go to make up the contents of this 
mportant memoir. We have not space to allude to these in detail. 
Certainly no student of American archeology can do without the work, 
if he wishes to be well informed in this branch of the science. 
ARSCHALL’s NomENcLATOR ZobLoercus.’ — The Zodlogical and 
Botanical Society of Vienna published in 1873 a Nomenclator Zoölog- 
icus, pr epared by Count Marschall, and intended to serve as a supplement 
the well-known work of Agassiz. Not having been issued by a reg- 
ular publishing house, the volume is less known than it would otherwise 
= t purports to include all names of genera proposed for animals be- 
tween 1846 and 1868, besides a few which were overlooked in the work 
