OF ST. JOHNS RIVER, EAST FLORIDA, 459 


















of them girdled more than thirty years since, can still be 
- seen standing. firmly in the Indian-old-fields. It certainly 
would not be extravagant to say that the tree in question 
_ had been dead more than half a century. Fragments of pot- 
tery were found in the earth and shells contained in the 
_ upturned roots of this tree, and on sinking a pit in the place 
_ formerly covered by the upright trunk, others were found at 
 adepth of from two to three feet. We had neither the tools 
_ tor the aid for making a section of this trunk to count the 
Number of annual rings. Through the kindness of Commo- 
À dore John Rogers, of the United States Navy, we have re- 
4 ceived a section from a tree nearly a century and a quarter 
old, and find that at the beginning of the second century 
_ there are about fifteen rings to the inch. In later periods of 
the life of the tree they would of course be more numerous. 
_ Assuming fifteen to the inch as the average, a half diameter 
_ of thirty-three inches would give 495 rings, or nearly five 
hundred years; if to this we add fifty years for the time 
since the tree died, there can be no doubt that the mound 
o Was substantially as complete as now more than a century 
before the discovery of the country. 
We know of no data based on the ġuantity of materials 
x which the mounds were formed, on which to estimate the 
‘me required to build them; to this end, it would be neces- 
_ Sty to know the number of persons occupying the place, 
and ‘the daily or annual consumption of food. If, as is the 
_ “Se of mounds built up in the swamps, they were resorted 
to only by those who could find camping conveniences upon 
them, the number must necessarily have been very small. 
The later aborigines had no traditions with regard to these 
; shell-heaps, or the burial-mounds which’ are sometimes near 
: z “m. They ascribed them to a former race. F lorida, ue 
E tas been more than. once overrun by exterior tribes, 
= the absence of traditions might in this way be accounted 
x > Since these would be likely to be lost with the change of 
: thabitants, Under the most favorable circumstances tradi- 

