Mounds have been opened in various portions of the State abounding in fluviatic muscles and clams, the inference being that they contained pearls, and for that reason had been opened. These mounds can be accounted for in two ways--the first and most important: they consumed the contents of these shells, of which they were very fond; the last was the necessity for elevated plateaus to protect them from the sudden inundation of streams when they were traveling through the country camping, consequently they utilized the _débris_ as a prevention against accidents. In their journeyings they depended entirely upon the products of the forest and streams for sustenance, and for this reason followed the water-courses, stopping, like the migratory birds, wherever night overtook them. Many copper weapons of warfare have been discovered in these earth-works, the metal of which was brought from the mines of Lake Superior, when the Indians followed the great river to the sea, three thousand years ago. These faint traces of mechanical and architectural skill favor the idea of a more enlightened race than that which possessed the soil when first discovered by the Spaniards--a society which, no doubt, sank amid storms, overthrown and shattered by unavoidable catastrophes. In Florida no discoveries have been made which evidence marks of a great nation, while in Mexico and on the Pacific coast, south, they increase. The Creeks, Cherokees, and Seminoles all agree in attributing the mounds of Florida to a race anterior to their own, as their traditions are handed down "that they were here when their ancestors took possession of the country." It is also asserted that the Florida Indians formerly worshiped the sun, which fact has been ascertained by their heraldic devices; also the location of their temples in such a manner that the first morning ray from this rising luminary would flash upon their sacred edifice--the Medicine Man, or High-priest, being in attendance to present his invocations with symbolic gestures, whose mysteries were a sealed book to all those around him, but supposed to be well understood by the Great Spirit, whose favor they wished to obtain. The Everglade Indians now venerate the moon, which can be seen from the silver crescent ornamental emblems with which they deck their persons. Like the ancient Greeks, they deposited the remains of their dead in burial urns, the difference being that the Greeks always prepared the bodies by cineration, when the ashes only were entombed, while the entire bodies of Indian children have been discovered in clay vases in the Florida _tumuli_. In sepulchral mounds about Tampa were discovered large quantities of the heaven-born product called pearls, which created much interest and more cupidity among the Spanish settlers than we could well imagine. It is Pliny who tells us that dew-drops distilled from the heavens, or falling into the mouths of oysters, in certain localities, were converted into pearls.