Notes on the Floridian Peninsula; its Literary History, Indian Tribes and Antiquities

The artificial lakes in this account are the excavations made in obtaining material, since filled with water. The highways, which, in another passage, the above quoted writer describes as “about fifty yards wide, sunk a little below the common level, and the earth thrown up on each side, making a bank of about two feet high,”[300 - Travels, p. 99.] seem, from both French and Spanish accounts to have been not unusual among the natives. Laudonniére mentions one of great beauty that extended from the village of Edelano to the river some three hundred paces in length,[301 - Au sorty du village d’Edelano, pour venir au port de la rivière il faut passer par une allée, longue environ de trois cens pas et large de quinze, aux deux costez de laquelle sont plantez de grands arbres, &c. Hist. Notable, p. 138.] and another still more considerable at the head quarters of the powerful chief Utina,[302 - Il y a au sortir du village une grande allée de trois à quatre cens pas, laquelle et recouverte de grands arbres des deux costez. Hist. Not. pp. 164-5.] which must have been very near if not identical with that at Mount Royal. La Vega, in his remarkable chapter on the construction of the native villages,[303 - Conq. de la Florida, Lib. II., P. I, cap. ult.] speaks of such broad passages leading from the public square at the base to the house of the chief on the summit of the mound that the natives were accustomed to throw up for its site. What we are to understand by the royal highways, Caminos Reales, near Tampa Bay, that lead from one town to another, (que van de un Pueblo al otro,)[304 - La Vega, Ibid., Lib. I., cap. V., pp. 30-1.] an expression that would not be applicable to mere trails, is not very evident.

Six miles by water above Lake Monroe, near the shore of a small lagoon on the left bank of the river, stands an oval mound of surface soil filled with human bones of so great an age, and so entirely decomposed, that the instrument with which I was digging passed through them with as much ease as through the circumjacent earth. Yet, among these ancient skeletons, I discovered numerous small blue and large white glass beads, undoubtedly inhumed at the formation of the tumulus. The bodies were all of adults and no special order in their deposition seemed to have been observed. Previous to my visit, I was informed that small earthenware articles had been disinterred, some of which were simply pyramids of triangular bases, whose use had much puzzled the finder. We know that this form, sacred in the mythologies of the old world to the worship of the productive power, had also a strong religious significance among the Natchez, and many other aboriginal tribes,[305 - Lafitau in Baumgarten, Geschichte von Amerika, B. I., s. 71; Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, Vol. II., pp. 52, 190.] and probably in connection with the burial of the dead, it possessed among the Floridians, as it did among the ancients and orientals,[306 - Knight, Anc. Art. sect. 162; Mackay, Progress of the Intellect, Vol I., p. 198, note

; Montfaucon, Antiquities, Vol. II, p. 235; Görres, Mythengeschichte, B. I., s. 171.] a symbolical connection with the immortality of the soul and the life after death.

In the rich hammock half a mile below Lake Harney on the left bank of the St. Johns, is a large oval mound, its transverse diameter at base forty yards, and thirty feet in height. It is surrounded by a ditch whence the soil of which it is constructed was taken. An extremely luxuriant vegetation covers the whole hammock and the mound itself, though few of the trees indicate a great age. On the same side of the river twenty miles above the lake, is another similar mound. They are abundant on the rich lands of Marion and Alachua counties, and in the hammocks of the Suwannee, and are found at least as far south as Charlotte’s Harbor and the Miami river. There is one on the government reserve in Tampa, another at the head of Old Tampa Bay, and a third on Long Key, Sarasota Bay. A portion of the latter has been washed away by the waters of the gulf and vast numbers of skeletons exposed, some of which I was assured by an intelligent gentleman of Manatee, who had repeatedly visited the spot and examined the remains, were of astonishing size and must have belonged to men seven or eight feet in height. This statement is not so incredible as it may appear at first sight. Various authors report instances of equally gigantic stature among the aborigines of our country. The chiefs of the province of Chicora, a portion of what is now South Carolina, were famous for their height, which was supposed to prove their royal blood;[307 - Real Cedula que contiene el asiento capitulado con Lucas Vasquez de Aillon, in Navarrete Viages, Tom. III. p. 153; Basanier, Hist. Notable, p. 29, and comp, p. 78.] some inhabitants of the province of Amichel on the Gulf of Mexico were not less remarkable in this respect;[308 - Real cedula dando facultad à Francisco de Garay para poblar la Provincia de Amichel, in Navarrete, Tom. III., p. 148. The account says they were “de diez à once palmos en alto.”] and Beverly found among certain human bones religiously preserved in a temple of the Virginian Indians an os femoris, measuring two feet nine inches in length;[309 - Histoire de la Virginie, Liv. III., p. 259, (Orleans, 1707.)] while in our own days, Schoolcraft saw a humerus at Fort Hill, New York,[310 - Notes on the Iroquois, p. 482.] and Lanman, sundry bones in a cave in Virginia[311 - Letters from the Allegheny Mountains, Let. XX. p. 162.] that must have belonged to men compared to whom ours is but a race of dwarfs.

On the opposite banks of Silver Spring run, respectively a quarter of a mile and a mile and a half below the head, there are two tumuli. Pottery, axes, and arrow-heads abound in the vicinity, and every sign goes to show that this remarkable spot was once the site of a populous aboriginal settlement.

What now are the characteristics of this class of Floridian mounds? In summing up the whole available knowledge respecting them, we arrive at the conclusion that to whatever purpose they may have subsequently been applied, they were originally constructed as vast cemeteries. Mount Royal tumulus is but a heap of bones covered with earth, and none have as yet been opened but disclosed the same contents. They are very simple in construction. I saw no well-defined terraces, no groups of mounds, none with rectangular or octagonal bases, no ditches but those made in excavating material, no covered ways, no stratification; in short, none of those signs of a comparatively advanced art that distinguish the earthworks of Ohio. Their age is not great. Some indeed are covered with trees of large size, and in one case the annual rings were said to count back to the year 1145,[312 - Archæologia Americana, Vol. I.] (a statement, however, that needs confirmation,) but the rapid growth of vegetation in that latitude requires but a few years to produce a forest. The plantation of Lord Rolles, deserted some fourscore years since, is now overgrown with pines a foot in diameter, and I have seen old fields still bearing the marks of cultivation covered with lofty forests, and a spot of cleared land, forsaken for ten years, clothed with a thriving growth of palmetto and oak. Moreover, savage and civilized, all men agree in leaving nature to adorn the resting places of the dead, and hence it is an egregious error to date the passing away of a nation from the oldest tree we find on its graves. Rather, when we recollect that from the St. Lawrence to the Pampas, many tribes did religious homage to certain trees, and when we remember how universal a symbol they are of birth and resurrection, should we be surprised were they not cultivated and fostered on the sepulchres of the departed.[313 - On the rôle of trees in primitive religions consult Guigniaut, Religions de l’Antiquitè, T. I., pp. 81, 150, note, 391, 406.]

We need no fanciful hypotheses to explain the reason and designate the time of these constructions. The bare recountal of the burial rites that prevailed among the aborigines is all sufficient to solve the riddle of bone-mounds both as they occur in Florida and all other States. The great feature of these rites was to preserve the bones of the dead, a custom full of significance in nature-worship everywhere. For this purpose the corpses were either exposed or buried till sufficient decomposition had ensued to permit the flesh to be easily removed. The bones were then scraped clean, and either carried to private dwellings, or deposited in public charnel-houses; such were the “Templos que servian de Entierros y no de Casas de Oracion,” seen by De Soto at Tampa Bay,[314 - La Vega, Conq. de la Florida, Lib. I., cap. IV., p. 5.] and the “Osarios,” bone-houses, in Cofachiqui, among the Cherokees.[315 - Ibid. Lib. III., cap. XIV., p. 129. cap. XV., p. 131, et sq.] Finally, at stated periods, they were collected from all quarters, deposited in some predetermined spot, and there covered with soil heaped into the shape of a cone. Annual additions to the same cemetery gave rise to the extraordinary dimensions that some attained; or several interments were made near the same spot, and hence the groups often seen.[316 - For descriptions of this mode of interment, essentially the same in most of the tribes from the Mississippi to the St. Lawrence, and very widely prevalent in South America, consult Wm. Bartram, Travels, p. 516; Romans, Nat. Hist. Fla., pp. 88-90; Adair, Hist. N. Am. Inds., p. 183; Lawson, New Account of Carolina, p. 182, in Stevens’ Collection; Beverly, Hist. de la Virginie, pp. 259-62; Baumgarten, Ges. von Amerika, B. I., s. 470; Colden, Hist. of the Five Nations, p. 16, and many others.]

As the Natchez, Taencas, and other southern tribes were accustomed to place the council-house and chief’s dwelling on artificial elevations, both to give them an air of superior dignity, to render them easy of defence, and in some localities to protect from inundations,[317 - See an instructive notice from Pere le Petit in the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, T. IV., pp. 261-2, and the Inca, Lib. II., pp. 69-70; Lib. IV., p. 188; Lib. V., pp. 202, 231, &c.] so the natives of Florida, in pursuance of the same custom, either erected such tumuli for this purpose, or more probably, only took advantage of those burial mounds that the vicissitudes of war had thrown in their hands, or a long period of time deprived of sacred associations. In the town of Ucita, where De Soto landed, “The Lordes house stoode neere the shore upon a very hie mounte made by hande for strength,”[318 - Port. Gent, in Hackluyt, V., p. 489.] and La Vega gives in detail their construction.

While this examination of their sepulchral rites, taken in connection with the discovery of glass beads in situ, leaves no doubt but that such remains were the work of the people who inhabited the peninsula at its discovery by Europeans, it is not probable that the custom was retained much after this period. The Lower Creeks and Seminoles, so far from treating their dead thus, took pains to conceal the graves, and never erected mounds save in one emergency. This was in the event of a victorious battle, when they collected the dead into one vast pile, and covered them with earth,[319 - Nar. of Oceola Nikkanoche, pp. 71-2. The author speaks of one “that must have covered two acres of ground,” but this is probably a misapprehension.] simply because it was the most convenient way to pay those last and mournful duties that humanity demands at our hands.

Another class of burial mounds, tallying very nearly with those said by the French to have been raised over their dead by the early Indians of the St. Johns, are not unusual in the hammocks along this river. They are only a few feet in height, resembling in appearance the hillocks of humus left by the roots of uprooted trees, from which they can be distinguished by their general range, (N., S.,) by the hollows on each side whence the earth was obtained, and by their construction. They are sometimes distinctly stratified, presenting layers of sand, ashes and charcoal, and clay. Bones, arrow-heads, axes, and pottery are found in them, but as far as my own observations extended, and those of a Norwegian settler bearing the classic name of Ivon Ericson, who assured me he had examined them frequently on the Upper St. Johns, in no case were beads or other articles indicating a familiarity with European productions discovered.

The utensils, the implements of war and the chase exhumed from the mounds, and found in their vicinity, do not differ from those in general use among the Indians of all parts at their first discovery,[320 - I am aware that Mr. Schoolcraft places the pottery of Florida intermediate between the coarse work of the northern hunter tribes, and the almost artistic manufactures of Yucatan and Mexico, (see an article on the Antiquities of Florida, in the Hist. of the Ind. Tribes, Vol. III.;) but the numerous specimens obtained in various parts of the peninsula that I had opportunities to examine, never seemed to indicate a civilization so advanced.] and go to corroborate the opinion that all these earthworks—and I am inclined to assert the same of the whole of those in the other Atlantic States, and the majority in the Mississippi valley—were the production, not of some mythical tribe of high civilization in remote antiquity, but of the identical nations found by the whites residing in these regions.

An equally interesting and more generally distributed class of antiquities are the beds and heaps of shells. These are found with more or less frequency on the shores of every State from Connecticut southward along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. Some of them are of enormous extent, covering acres of ground, and of a singular height. For a long time it was a debateable point whether they belonged to the domain of the geologist or antiquarian; later researches have awarded them to both, by distinguishing between those of natural and artificial origin.[321 - There is an excellent paper on this topic by the well-known geologist, Lardner Vanuxem, in the Trans. Am. Assoc. Geol. and Naturalists, for 1840-42, p. 21. sq.] The latter are recognized by the presence of darts, pottery, charcoal, &c., in original connection with the shells and debris throughout the mass, by the presence of surface soil, roots, and stumps, in situ beneath the heap, by nearness to an open fishing shore, and finally by the valves of the shell fish being asunder and their edges factured or burnt; on the other hand, whole closed shells as at Easton in Maryland, fragments of older fossils in original connection, distinct stratification,[322 - This is not an invariable proof however; see Tuomey, Geol. Survey of S. Car., p. 199, note.] and remoteness from any known oyster bed, as those of northern Texas, northern Georgia, and perhaps of Cumberland county, New Jersey, are convincing proofs of their natural deposition.

Examples in Florida are numerous and striking. At Fernandina new town on Amelia island, a layer extends along the face of the bluff for one hundred and fifty yards and inland a quarter of a mile, sometimes three feet in depth, composed almost wholly of shells of the esculent oyster though with clams and conches sparsely intermixed. The valves are all separate, the shells in some places rotten, fractured and mixed with sand, charcoal, and pottery, while in others as clean and sound as if just from the hands of the oysterman.

Similar deposits are found in various parts of the island; on the main land opposite; on both sides of the entrance to the St. Johns; on Anastasia island; and every where along the coast both of the Atlantic and the Gulf. One of the most remarkable is Turtle Mound on Musquito Lagoon, near New Smyrna. “It is thirty feet high, composed almost altogether of separate oyster shells, it being rare to find an entire one; there are also some conch and clam shells, both of which are, however, exceedingly scarce. That it is artificial there is no doubt on my mind. Some eight or ten years since we experienced a gale in this section of the country, from the northwest, which caused that portion of the mound facing the river, the steepest part, to wash and fall considerably; being there a few days afterwards, I took considerable pains to examine the face of it, and found as low as the bottom and as high up as I could observe, numberless pieces of Indian pottery, and quantities of bones principally of fish, but no human ones; also charcoal and beds of ashes. The one on which I reside, opposite New Smyrna, is precisely of the same formation. Having had occasion some time back to dig a hole six or eight feet deep, I found precisely the same contents that I have described at Turtle Mound, with the addition of some few flint arrowheads.”

For this interesting description from the pen of a gentleman of the vicinity I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. F. L. Dancy, State Geologist of Florida; he adds from his own observation an account of one on Chrystal river, on the Gulf coast, four miles from its mouth. “The marsh of the river at that point is some twenty yards wide to the firm land, at which point this mound commences to rise; it is on all sides nearly perpendicular, the faces covered with brush and trees to which the curious have to cling to effect an ascent. It is about forty feet in height, the top surface nearly level, about thirty feet across, and covered with magnolia, live-oak, and other forest trees, some of them four feet in diameter. Its form is that of a truncated cone, and as far as can be judged from external appearance, it is composed exclusively of oyster shells and vegetable mould. These shells are all separated. The mound was evidently thrown up by the Indians for a lookout, as the Gulf can be distinctly seen from its summit. There are no oysters growing at this time within four or five miles of it.”

Other shell heaps are met with along the coast but none equalling in magnitude that seen by Sir Charles Lyell[323 - Second Visit to the United States, Vol. I., p. 252.] on Cannon’s Island at the mouth of the Altamaha, covering ten acres of ground, “elevated in some places ten feet and on an average five feet above the general level,” and which this eminent geologist attributes exclusively to the Indians, or the vast beds of Gnathodon Cuneatus, on Mobile Bay, described by Mr. Hale,[324 - Am. Jour. of Science, Vol. XI., (2 ser.) pp. 164-74.] which, however, are probably of natural formation, though containing quantities of human bones, pottery, images, &c.

It is strange that we find no notices of the formation of these heaps by the early travellers; I do not remember to have met with any except a line in Cabeza de Vaca, where, speaking of a tribe on the Gulf, he says their houses were “built of mats on heaps of oyster shells.”[325 - Le case loro sono edificate di stuore sopra scorze d’ostriche, e sopra di esse dormono sopra cuoi d’animali. Relatione que fece Alvaro Nunez, detto Capo di Vaca, Ramusio, Viaggi, T. III., fol. 317., E.]

Along Manatee river I noticed numerous small heaps of conches, attributable to the later Indians, and in the post-pliocene shellbluffs at the mouth of this river, nearly twenty feet in height composed largely of a species of Pyrula,[326 - On the geology of these bluffs, see the articles by Mr. Allen, in the first, and Mr. Conrad in the second volume of the Am. Jour. Science. (Second series.)] I found numerous fragments of a coarse, ill-marked, pottery, not, however, where the shells were unbroken and clean, but where they were fragmentary, mixed with charcoal, ashes and dirt, and never more than three feet below the surface. The singular hillocks, whose formation is a geological enigma not readily solved, so frequent along the St. Johns, vast aggregations of Helices with some Unios and other fresh water shells in connection, without admixture of earth, in some cases thirty feet high, and irregularly stratified, are not to be mistaken for those of artificial construction, though from the frequency of Indian relics found in them, they seem to have been a chosen place of burial for the aboriginal tribes.

Among the relics dating from a later period are the “Indian Old Fields.” These are portions of land once cleared and cultivated by the Seminoles, and are found wherever the fertility of the soil promised favorably for agriculture. They are very abundant in Alachua, where, says Bartram,[327 - Travels, p. 198.] “almost every step discovers traces of ancient human habitation,” reminding us of the time “when the Indians could assemble by thousands at ball play and other juvenile diversions and athletic exercises on these then happy fields and green plains.” Such is the tenacity of the soil for retaining impressions, that the marks of tillage by which these are distinguished from the Spanish old fields are easily seen and readily discriminated, even after they are covered by a dense growth of trees.

APPENDIX I.

THE SILVER SPRING

The geological formation of Florida gives rise to springs and fountains of such magnitude and beauty, that they deserve to be ranked with the great freshwater lakes, the falls of Niagara, and the Mississippi river, as grand hydrographical features of the North American continent. The most remarkable are the Wakulla, twelve miles from Tallahassie, of great depth and an icy coldness, which is the best known, and has been described by the competent pen of Castlenau and others, the Silver Spring and the Manatee Spring. The latter is on the left bank of the Suwannee, forty-five miles from its mouth, and is so named from having been a favorite haunt of the sea-cow, (Trichechus Manatus,) whose bones, discolored by the sulphuret of iron held in solution by the water, are still found there.

The Silver Spring, in some respects the most remarkable of the three, is in the centre of Marion county, ten miles from the Ocklewaha, into which its stream flows, and six miles from Ocala, the county seat. In December, 1856, I had an opportunity to examine it with the aid of proper instruments, which I did with much care. It has often been visited as a natural curiosity, and is considered by tourists one of the lions of the State. To be appreciated in its full beauty, it should be approached from the Ocklewaha. For more than a week I had been tediously ascending this river in a pole-barge, wearied with the monotony of the dank and gloomy forests that everywhere shade its inky stream,[328 - The peculiar hue of the whole St. Johns system of streams has been termed by various travellers a light brown, light red, coffee color, rich umber, and beer color. In the sun it is that of a weak lye, but in the shade often looks as black as ink. The water is quite translucent and deposits no sediment. The same phenomenon is observed in the low country of Carolina, New Jersey, and Lake Superior, and on a large scale in the Rio Negro, Atababo, Temi, and others of South America. In the latter, Humboldt (Ansichten der Natur, B. I., p. 263-4) ascribes it “to a solution of carburetted hydrogen, to the luxuriance of a tropical vegetation, and to the quantity of plants and herbs on the ground on which they flow.” In Florida, the vast marshes and hammocks, covered the year round with water from a few inches to two feet in depth, yet producing such rank vegetation as to block up the rivers with floating islands, are doubtless the main cause. The Hillsboro, Suwannee, and others, flowing through the limestone lands into the Gulf, are on the other hand remarkable for the clarity of their streams. I have drank this natural decoction when it tasted and smelt so strongly of decayed vegetable matter as almost to induce nausea. A fact not readily explained is that while the dark waters of other regions are marked by a lack of fish and crocodiles, a freedom from stinging musquitoes, a cooler atmosphere and greater salubrity, nothing of the kind occurs on these streams.] when one bright morning a sharp turn brought us into the pellucid waters of the Silver Spring Run. A few vigorous strokes and we had left behind us the cypress swamps and emerged into broad, level savannas, that stretched miles away on either hand to the far-off pine woods that, like a frame, shut in the scene. In the summer season these prairies, clothed in the luxuriance of a tropical vegetation, gorgeously decked with innumerable flowers, and alive with countless birds and insects of brilliant hues, offer a spectacle that once seen can never be forgotten.

But far more strangely beautiful than the scenery around is that beneath—the subaqueous landscape. At times the bottom is clothed in dark-green sedge waving its long tresses to and fro in the current, now we pass over a sunken log draperied in delicate aquatic moss thick as ivy, again the scene changes and a bottom of greyish sand throws in bright relief concentric arcs of brilliantly white fragments of shells deposited on the lower side of ripple marks in a circular basin. Far below us, though apparently close at hand, enormous trout dash upon their prey or patiently lie in wait undisturbed by the splash of the poles and the shouts of the negroes, huge cat-fish rest sluggishly on the mud, and here and there, every protuberance and bony ridge distinctly visible, the dark form of an alligator is distended on the bottom or slowly paddles up the stream. Thus for ten miles of an almost straight course, east and west, is the voyager continually surprised with fresh beauties and unimagined novelties.

The width of the stream varies from sixty to one hundred and twenty-five feet, its average greatest depth about twenty, the current always quite rapid. For about one mile below its head, forests of cypress, maple, ash, gum, and palmetto adorn the banks with a pleasing variety of foliage. The basin itself is somewhat elliptical in form, the exit being at the middle of one side; its transverse diameter measures about one hundred and fifty yards, (N. E., S. W.,) its conjugate one hundred yards. Easterly it is bordered by a cypress swamp, while the opposite bank is hidden by a dense, wet hammock. A few yards from the brink opposite the exit runs a limestone ridge of moderate elevation covered with pine and jack-oak.

The principal entrance of the water is at the northeastern extremity. Here a subaqueous limestone bluff presents three craggy ledges, between the undermost of which and the base is an orifice, about fifteen feet in length by five in height, whence the water gushes with great violence. Another and smaller entrance is at the opposite extremity. The maximum depth was at the time of my visit forty-one feet. The water is tasteless, presents no signs of mineral matter in solution, and so perfectly diaphanous that the smallest shell is entirely visible on the bottom of the deepest portion. Slowly drifting in a canoe over the precipice I could not restrain an involuntary start of terror, so difficult was it, from the transparency of the supporting medium for the mind to appreciate its existence. When the sunbeams fall full upon the water, by a familiar optical delusion, it seems to a spectator on the bank that the bottom and sides of the basin are elevated, and over the whole, over the frowning crags, the snow-white shells, the long sedge, and the moving aquatic tribes, the decomposed light flings its rainbow hues, and all things float in a sea of colors, magnificent and impressive beyond description. What wonder that the untaught children of nature spread the fame of this marvellous fountain to far distant climes, and under the stereoscopic power of time and distance came to regard it as the life-giving stream, whose magic waters washed away the calamities of age and the pains of disease, round whose fortunate shores youths and maidens ever sported, eternally young and eternally joyous!

During my stay I took great pains to ascertain the exact temperature of the water and from a number of observations made at various hours of the day obtained a constant result of 73.2°, Fahrenheit. This is higher than the mean annual temperature of the locality, which, as determined by a thermometrical record kept at Fort King near Ocala for six years, is 70.00°; while it is lower than that of the small mineral springs so abundant throughout the peninsula, which I rarely found less than 75°. It is probable, however, that this is not a fixed temperature but varies with the amount of water thrown out. Competent observers, resident on the spot, informed me that a variation of three feet in the vertical depth of the basin had been known to occur in one year, though this was far greater than usual. The time of highest water is shortly after the rainy season, about the month of September, a fact that indicates the cause of the change.

Visiting the spring when at a medium height I enjoyed peculiar advantages for calculating the amount of water given forth. The method I used was the convenient and sufficiently accurate one of the log and line, the former of three inches radius, the latter one hundred and two feet in length. In estimating the size of the bed I chose a point about a quarter of a mile from the basin. The results were calculated according to the formulæ of Buat. After making all possible allowance for friction, for imperfection of instruments, and inaccuracy of observation, the average daily quantity of water thrown out by this single spring reaches the enormous amount of more than three hundred million gallons!

Numbers such as this are beyond the grasp of the human intellect, bewildering rather than enlightening the mind. Let us take another unit and compare it with the most stupendous hydrographical works of man that have been the wonders of the world. Most renowned of these are the aqueducts of Rome. In the latter half of the first century, when Frontinus was inspector, the public register indicated a daily supply of fourteen thousand and eighteen quinaria, about one hundred and ninety-six million gallons. Or we can choose modern instances. The city of London is said to require forty million gallons every twenty-four hours, New York about one-third, and Philadelphia one-quarter as much. Thus we see that this one fount furnishes more than enough water to have satisfied the wants of Rome in her most imperial days, to supply plenteously eight cities as large as London, a score of New Yorks, or thirty Philadelphias. By the side of its stream the far-famed aqueduct of Lyons, yielding one million two hundred and nine thousand six hundred gallons daily, or the Croton aqueduct, whose maximum diurnal capacity is sixty million gallons, seems of feeble importance, while the stateliest canals of Solomon, Theodoric, or the Ptolemies dwindle to insignificant rivulets.

Neither is this the emergence of a sunken river as is the case with the Wakulla fountain, but is a spring in the strictest sense of the word, deriving its sustenance from the rains that percolate the porous tertiary limestone that forms the central ridge of the peninsula.

There are many other springs both saline, mineral, and of pure water, which would be looked upon as wonders in any country where such wonders were less abundant. Such are the Six Mile Spring (White Spring, Silver Spring), and the Salt Spring on the western shore of Lake George, a sulphur spring on Lake Monroe, one mile from Enterprise, another eight miles from Tampa on the Hillsboro’ river, Gadsden’s spring in Columbia county, the Blue spring on the Ocklawaha, Orange Springs in Alachua county, the Oakhumke the source of the Withlacooche, and numberless others of less note.[329 - For particulars concerning some of these, see Wm. Bartram, Travels, pp. 145, 165, 206, 230; Notices of E. Florida, by a recent Trav., pp. 28, 44; American Journal of Science, Vol. XXV., p. 165, I., (2 ser.) p. 39.] Besides these, the other hydrographical features of the peninsula are unique and instructive, well deserving a thorough and special examination; such are the intermittent lakes, which, like the famous Lake Kauten in Prussia, the Lugea Palus or Zirchnitzer See in the duchy of Carniola, and the classical Lake Fucinus, have their regular periods of annual ebb and flow; while the sinking rivers Santa Fe, Chipola, Econfinna, Ocilla and others offer no less interesting objects of study than their analogues in the secondary limestone of Styria, in Istria, Carniola, Cuba, and other regions.

When we ponder on the cause of these phenomena we are led to the most extraordinary conclusions. To explain them we are obliged to accept the opinion—which very many associated facts tend to substantiate—that the lower strata of the limestone formation of the peninsula have been hollowed out by the action of water into vast subterranean reservoirs, into enormous caverns that intersect and ramify, extending in some cases far under the bed of the adjacent ocean, through whose sunless corridors roll nameless rivers, and in whose sombre halls sleep black lakes. During the rainy season, gathering power in silence deep in the bowels of the earth, they either expend it quietly in fountains of surprising magnitude, or else, bursting forth in violent eruptions, rend asunder the overlying strata, forming the “lime sinks,” and “bottomless lakes,” common in many counties of Florida; or should this occur beneath the ocean, causing the phenomenon of “freshening,” sometimes to such an extent as to afford drinkable water miles from land, as occurred some years ago off Anastasia Island, and in January, 1857, near Key West.

APPENDIX II.

THE MUMMIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY

A number of years ago considerable curiosity was excited by the discovery of mummies in Tennessee and Kentucky, and many theories were promulged regarding their origin, but I believe neither that nor their age has, as yet, been satisfactorily determined.

Some were found as early as 1775, near Lexington, Kentucky, but we have no definite account of any before those exhumed September 2, 1810, in a copperas cave in Warren county, Tennessee, on the Cany fork of the Cumberland river, ten miles below the Falls. These were described in the Medical Repository by Mr. Miller, whose article was followed by another in the same periodical, illustrated by a sketch, in support of the view that this discovery indicated the derivation of the Indians from the Malays and Tartars. The same pair was also described by Breckenridge and Flint a few years later.

Shortly previous to 1813, two mummies were found in the Gothic avenue of the Mammoth Cave, and not long afterwards, (1814,) another in the Audabon avenue.

The same year, several more were discovered in a nitre cave near Glasgow, Kentucky, by Thomas Monroe, who forwarded one to the American Antiquarian Society, described by Dr. Mitchell in the first volume of the publications of that body.

Again, in 1828, two more were found in a complete state of preservation in a cave of West Tennessee, mentioned in the American Journal of Science, (Vol. xxii. p. 124.)

With that zest for the wonderful, for which antiquarians are somewhat famous, the idea that these remains could belong to tribes with whom the first settlers were acquainted, was rejected, and recourse was had to Malays, South Sea Islanders, and the antipodes generally, for a more reasonable explanation. It was said that the envelopes of the bodies (all of which bore close resemblance among themselves) pointed to a higher state of the arts than existed among the Indians of the Mississippi Valley, and that the physical differences, the color of the hair, &c., were irreconcileable. I think, however, it may be shown that these objections are of no weight, and that the bodies in question were interred at a comparatively late period.

The wrappings consisted usually of deer skins, dressed and undressed, mats of split canes, some as much as sixty yards long, and a woven stuff called “blankets,” “sheets,” and “cloth;” this was often either bordered with feathers of the wild turkey and other birds, or covered with them in squares and patterns. Their ages, as guessed from appearances, varied from ten years to advanced life. In several cases the mark of a severe blow on the head was seen, which must have caused the individual’s death. Their stature was usually in conformity to their supposed age;[330 - Flint, (Travels, Let. XVI., p. 172,) says that neither of those found in 1810 measured more than four feet. This is an error. He only saw the female, whose age was not over fourteen, and the squatting position in which the body was, deceived him.] the weight of one, as given by Flint, six or eight pounds; in all cases but one the hair of a “sorrel,” “foxy,” “yellow” or “sandy” color; and they were usually found five or six feet below the surface.

First, then, in our examination, the question arises, did the Indians of the Mississippi Valley, when first met by the whites, possess the art of manufacturing woven stuff of the kind mentioned? In answer we have the express words of the Inca,[331 - Conq. de la Florida, Lib. V., P. II., cap. VIII.] “These mantles the Indians of Florida make of a certain herb-like mallows, (malvas,) which has fibres like flax, (que tiene hebra, como lino,) and from the same they make thread, to which they give colors which remain most firmly.” The next explorer was La Salle; in Tonty’s account of his expedition,[332 - In French’s Hist. Coll. of La., Pt. I., p. 61.] he remarks that he saw in a council lodge of the Taencas, “sixty old men clothed in large white cloaks, which are made by the women from the bark of the mulberry tree.” Still more to our purpose are the words of later writers, who mention the interweaving of feathers. Not only, says Dumont,[333 - Mems. Hist. sur la Louisiane, T. I., pp. 154-5.] do the Indian women make garters and ribbons of the wool of the buffalo, (du laine du beuf,) but also a sort of mat of threads obtained from the bark of the linden, (tilleul,) “qu’elles couvrent de plumes de cigne des plus fines, attachèes une à une sur cet toil.” Dupratz[334 - Hist. of Louisiana, Vol. II., p. 230.] mentions similar cloaks of mulberry bark covered “with the feathers of swans, turkeys, and India ducks,” the fibres of the bark being twisted “about the thickness of packthread,” and woven “with a wrought border around the edges.” Of the Indians of North Carolina, Lawson says,[335 - A New Account of Carolina, p. 191.] “Their feather match-coats are very pretty, especially some of them which are made extraordinary charming, containing several pretty figures, wrought in feathers, making them seem like a fine flower Silk-Shag.” Other examples might be given, but these are sufficient.

The cane mat was an article of daily use among the tribes wherever the cane grew, and was bartered to those where it did not. The Arkanzas, Taencas, Cenis, Natchez, and Gulf tribes, used it to cover their huts;[336 - Joutel, Jour. Hist., p. 218; Mems. of Sieur de Tonty, p. 61; Dupratz, V. II., p. 22; Cabeza de Vaca. in Ramusio, T. III., fol. 317, E.] hence a piece even sixty yards long was no uncommon matter; while in one instance at least,[337 - Lawson, ubi suprà, p. 180.] we know that the eastern tribes rolled their dead in them, tying them fast at both ends. All the minor articles of ornament and dress, the bone and horn needles, the vegetable beads, &c., can be shown with equal facility to have been in general use among the natives.[338 - It was remarked of the mummy found in the Mammoth cave, “In the making of her dress there is no evidence of the use of any other machinery than bone and horn needles.” (Collin’s Kentucky, p. 257.)]

It has usually been supposed that these bodies were preserved by the chemical action of the nitriferous soil around them; but this does not account for their perfection and extreme desiccation, inclosed as they were in such voluminous envelopes. Yet it is quite certain that the viscera were never absent, nor has any balm or gum been found upon them.[339 - Archæologia Americana, Vol. I., p. 230.] Hence, if artificially prepared, it must have been by protracted drying by fire, in a manner common among the ancient inhabitants of the Caroline islands, the Tahitians, the Guanches of Teneriffe, and still retained in some convents in the Levant. It is well known that in America the Popayans, the Nicaraguans, and the Caribs of the West Indies had this custom;[340 - Whence the French verb boucaner, and the English buccaneer. Possibly the custom may have been introduced among the tribes of the northern shore of the Gulf by the Caribs.] but I believe that attention has not been called to the fact, that this very mode of preserving the dead was used more or less by the Indians of the Mississippi Valley. The southern tribes of Mississippi and Alabama dried the corpse of their chief over a slow fire, placed it in the temple as an object of adoration till the death of his successor, and then transferred it to the bottom or cellar (fond) of the building.[341 - Dumont, Mems., Hist. sur la Louisiane, T. I, p. 240.] Analogous usages, modifications of this and probably derived from it, prevailed among the tribes of North Carolina, Virginia, and the Pacific coast,[342 - De Bry, Peregrinationes in America, P. I., Tab. XXII.; Beverly, Hist. de la Virginie, Liv. III., pp. 285-6; Lawson, Acc’t of Carolina, p. 182; Schoolcraft, Hist. Ind. Tribes, Vol. V., p. 693.] while we have seen that Bristock asserts the same of the Apalachites. That a cave should be substituted for a temple, or that the bodies should be ultimately inhumed, cannot excite our surprise when we recall how subject the Indians were to sudden attacks, how solicitous that their dead should not be disturbed,[343 - See the Inca, Lib. IV., caps. VIII., IX.] and how caves were ever regarded by them as natural temples for their gods and most fit resting places for their dead.[344 - See the Am. Jour. of Science, Vol. I., p. 429; Vol. XXII., p. 124; Collin’s Kentucky, pp. 177, 448, 520, 541; Bradford, Am. Antiqs., Pt. I., p. 29.]

The rarity of the mummies may be easily accounted for as only the bodies of the chiefs were thus preserved. Yet it is a significant fact that a body is rarely, if ever, found alone. Moreover, in every case of which we have special description, these are of different sexes, and one, the female, and the youngest, sometimes apparently not more than twelve or fourteen years of age, evidently died by violence. How readily these seemingly unconnected facts take place and order, and how intelligible they become, when we learn that at the death of a ruler the Indians sacrificed and buried with him one or two of his wives, and in some tribes the youngest was always the chosen victim of this cruel superstition.[345 - Dumont, Mems. Hist. T. II., pp. 178, 238; Dupratz, Vol. II., p. 221, and for the latter fact, Mems. of the Sieur de Tonty, p. 61.]

The light color of the hair is doubtless caused by the nitriferous soil with which it had been so long surrounded; a supposition certified by one instance, where, in consequence of the unusually voluminous wrappings, and perhaps a later interment, it retained the black color of that of the true Indian.[346 - Medical Repository, Vol. XVI., p. 148. This opinion is endorsed by Bradford, Am. Antiqs., p. 31.]

Though most of these references relate to nations not dwelling immediately in the area of country where the mummies are found, it is quite unnecessary for me to refer in this connection to those numerous and valid arguments, derived both from tradition and archæology, that prove beyond doubt that this tract, and indeed the whole Ohio valley, had changed masters shortly before the whites explored it, and that its former possessors when not destroyed by the invaders, had been driven south.

Hence we may reasonably infer, that as no article found upon the mummies indicates a higher degree of art than was possessed by the southern Indians, as the physical changes are owing to casual post mortem circumstances, as we have positive authority that certain tribes were accustomed to preserve the corpses of their chiefs; and lastly, as we have many evidences to show that such tribes, or those closely associated with them, once dwelt further north than they were first found, consequently the deposition of the mummies must be ascribed to a race who dwelt near the region where they occur, at the time of its exploration by Europeans.

APPENDIX III.

THE PRECIOUS METALS POSSESSED BY THE EARLY FLORIDIAN INDIANS