
© AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
COAT ORI ODD I~ 

ON THE FRESH-WATER SHELL-HEAPS OF THE ST. 
JOHNS RIVER, EAST FLORIDA. 
BY JEFFRIES WYMAN, M. D. 


[Concluded from page 403.] 
Il. ARTICLES TAKEN FROM THE SHELL-HEAPS, SHOWING 
HUMAN AGENCY. © 
Pottery. In the old world no traces of pottery have been 
found associated with the earliest flint-implements, and it is 
therefore concluded that the men who wrought these were 
ignorant of it. When the European first came to America, 
some of the tribes were found to be destitute of this art. The 
Patagonians had no earthen vessels either for cooking or 
olding water. Instead of such the Esquimaux used wooden 
bowls, and the natives of the North-west Coast, Oregon and 
lifornia, water-tight baskets, substituting heated stones for 
the direct action of fire. But with few exceptions pottery, 
4S an art, was practised by a large majority of the tribes. 
If, as daily experience tends to show, man, when first in- 
duced upon the surface of the earth, was at best a pure 
‘Savage without experience, it follows as a natural conse- 
Mence that there must have been a longer or shorter time 
“Aen instruments were unknown to him. We have no ade- 
Tre grounds for any other belief, than that his knowledge 
ee O OO 


















La 

‘ Entereq i H OF i 
Sereno’ according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by the PEABODY ACADEMY OF, 
CE, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
57 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. II 
