
OF ST. JOHNS RIVER, EAST FLORIDA. 395 
The shell-heaps we are now to describe were visited dur- 
ing the months of February and March, 1867, in company 
with Mr. G. A. Peabody, of Salem, Mass., and Mr. George 
H. Dunscombe, of Canada West, to both of whom the writer 
is largely indebted for aid in making explorations and for 
valuable contributions to his collections. The heaps are dis- 
tributed over a distance of more than one hundred and fifty 
miles, between Palatka and Salt Lake, and are nearly all 
situated on knolls, seen here and there on the borders of the 
river, though a few are built in swamps’or on dry land, at 
some distance from it. They are composed almost exclu- 
sively of one or more of the following species of shells, 
namely, Ampullaria depressa of Say, Paludina multilineata 
y, and Unio Buckleyi Lea. Besides these, a species of 
Melania and a few Helices are found, but they, as well as a 
few marine shells, must be considered as accidentally pres- 
nt. The mounds vary much in size, from circular heaps 
fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and a few inches high, to 
long ridges several hundred feet in length, and having a 
height from a few inches to four or five, and in some cases 
to fifteen feet. They are generally overgrown with oaks, 
maples, palmettos, bays, magnolias occasionally, and other 
forest trees, and not unfrequently with groves of the wild 
orange. The last, bearing a fruit both bitter and sour, has 
been supposed to be indigenous; but it would appear from 
researches of Mr. G. R. Fairbanks, a gentleman thor- 
oughly versed in the history of the peninsula, that they 
_ Were introduced by the Spaniards.* We personally visited 
_ More than twenty-five of these heaps, but only a few of them 
ee a eee 
Whiting, U.S. A 1 
: an introduction to, and a digest of, the literature pertaining to the whole State, the e 
Sen work, Notes on the Floridian Peninsula, by Daniel G. Brinton, A. B., Ehia 
x i s work also contains an account of the author’s own 
2 een ations of the shell-heaps of the sea-coast. : PGR os OE 
ae -Fairbanks has observed that tl fi e I sae eat ode oe 
js found them 

rivi i f rf Pe | 
. it does not appear that they are di 
there. a? Which it is presumed they would have been, had the Spaniards tay tevile 
5 Orange rus they so particularly mention other fruits. They are probably 
: Tun wild. 



