The heap was irregular in shape and about four hundred yards in circumference at the base. It consisted entirely of quantities of human skulls and bones. We examined it sufficiently to enable certain facts to be made clear. From the manner in which groups of skulls and thigh bones were placed and separated, it was evident that the burials took place at considerable intervals of time. This is in accordance with what is known of the funeral customs of the Indians in Florida and the southern parts of the Mississippi Valley at the time of the expedition of De Soto. It was then ascertained that in each of the villages there was a large building in which were kept boxes containing human bones. Before the bones were collected in this manner, the bodies had been placed in the adjacent forest, exposed to the air but raised on a scaffolding sufficiently high to prevent them from being disturbed by wild animals. After a suitable time had elapsed the bones were separated and cleaned, and were then deposited in the charnel-house, where religious ceremonies were frequently performed. Upon certain occasions, when the boxes were getting full, the bones were taken away and conveyed to the tribal burial place. Judging from the manner in which the bones were deposited in the mound, it is probable that they were brought in their separate cases, and that the contents of each case were carefully kept together and finally thrown out in separate heaps. The occasions when the bones were brought here, may have been those when the tribes made their migrations to the seacoast. The methods of cleaning and removing the bones of the Indians in Florida were similar to those of the Dakotas. On the coast, a few miles north of Cedar Keys, there were other large shell mounds, and in Tampa Bay I was shown the position of a long and extensive range of similar heaps on its southern shores. It is evident that before the sixteenth century there must have been a numerous aboriginal race inhabiting these coasts. The scattered remnants of the tribes that remained in Florida at the conclusion of the last Indian war in this region, have been removed and placed upon lands beyond the Mississippi. CHAPTER XIX. Mounds and Earthworks in North and Central America. — Migrations of the Toltecs and Aztecs. — The Quichés. — Aboriginal races. — Palenque. — Hieroglyphs. — Temples. — Desertion of the Temples and stone buildings in Yucatan. — Conquest of Yucatan by the Aztecs. — Antiquity of Palenque and Uxmal. — Aztec custom of imprisoning captives in cages and sacrificing them to the gods. — Civilisation of the Toltecs. — Note upon the symbol or Totem of the Serpent. In the following chapters I propose to bring together the various notes upon the Indians and their temples and earthworks which were made when traversing Central America, and to add to them the conclusions which have been formed subsequently.