920 ‘The American Naturalist. [Novetnber, 
Magnolia, fifty-three miles from the river’s mouth, while shell 
collectors state that fresh-water snails are sparingly found in 
tributary creeks near Jacksonville, twenty-five miles from the 
sea. Beyond this point no data have been obtained. After 
careful consideration of these facts the writer thinks it proba- 
ble that the discontinuance of the line of shell heaps was a 
necessity imposed upon the aborigines through an insufficient 
supply of their staple article of diet, and that this scarcity 
arose through a certain admixture of salt water coming with 
the tide from the sea. 
The tide in the St. John’s is noticeable as far south as Lake 
George, and it is stated on competent authority that barnacles 
are found on pilings at Palatka, hence it is very probable that 
an admixture of salt water in which only the most hardy 
fresh-water mollusca can live is met with in the neighborhood 
of that town. It is also not improbable that conditions now 
existing at the mouth of the river were not found in earlier 
times, and that the absence of a bar admitted a greater flow 
of tide water, in which event fresh-water shell fish within 
reach of the brackish water would be even less numerous than 
at present. 
NOTE B. 
AS TO THE METHOD OF COOKING APPLIED TO SHELL FISH. 
The method of preparation of the shell fish as a medium of 
diet by the aborigines must be considered an open question. 
Upon no shells at any distance from the various fire places 
are marks of fire traceable, from which it would appear that 
roasting was not the method employed. 
While boiling would leave no trace on the shells, a question 
naturally arises as to the method of accomplishment of this 
form of cooking by those living on certain heaps to whom the 
manufacture of pottery was unknown. If baskets of wicker or 
bowls of wood, in which the water was heated by stones pre- 
viously exposed to the action of fire, were used, such stones 
would of necessity be comparatively abundant in the shell 
heaps. But they are wanting. | 
