1895.] Anthropology. 1135 
stays, small fragments of netting, and the like, as well as rope made of 
palmetto and agave fibre, burnt thatch, a long and beautifully finished 
spar or post, fragments of a burnt mud hearth and of pottery, some 
highly finished, wattling plummets and sinkers, two beautifully shaped 
fish clubs, five mounted busycon shells, one of which was edged to 
serve as a celt, several of the shell funnels (which proved to have been 
mounted on handles asspoons) many necklace pendants, gourds, seeds, 
etc., etc. Some of the art remains found here and on the surrounding 
low, but very extensive shell mounds, as well as at other settlements, 
strongly indicated, as did skulls later dug from a shell burial place 
to the northward on Sanybal Island, a far southern origin of the 
builders of these works, at least of the oldest of them. Moreover, the 
study of these shell settlements and of their art remains, has been found 
by me to have a most important and explicit bearing on the archeo- 
logy of at least the Mississippi and contiguous regions, in other words 
on the Mound Builder question ; points which it is believed the expedi- 
tion I am hoping soon to conduct to Florida under the joint auspices 
of the University Association and the Bureau of American Ethnology 
will clear up and to some extent demonstrate or establish. But even 
if these indications of a hasty reconnissance be not all borne out by 
` more careful examination of the field, still, this find of Colonel Durn- 
ford’s seems to have been typical, to relate at least to a hitherto un- 
thought of phase of aboriginal life, to relate also to a period indefinitely 
antedating the time of Columbian Discovery, and hence giving us, as 
have the cliff dwellings—so opposite in character—well preserved re- 
mains of the perishable work of prehistoric stone-age (or, in this case, 
shell-age) men, and is thus the most important of Archeologic finds re- 
cently brought to notice. The Archeological Association of the 
University of Pennsylvania is therefore to be congratulated on the 
uuique opportunity far research in a comparatively new field which 
Colonel Durnford’s scientific disinterestedness and generosity has made 
possible—Frank HAMILTON CUSHING. 
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
The National Academy of Sciences.—A scientific session of 
the Academy was held at Philadelphia, in the Laboratory of Hygiene 
of the University of Pennsylvania, beginning Tuesday, October 29, 
1895, at 11 o’clock A. m. and continuing through the following day. 
The papers presented were as follows : 
