228 Naturalist at Large 



when he declared that the formation of shore plants in the 

 mangrove area was as fine in their majestic size as anything 

 in the PhiHppines, although, of comrse, infinitely less varied 

 in the number of species of trees. 



During the last few years a good part of my time has been 

 enjoyably and profitably expended in watching the excava- 

 tion at the Thomas Farm in Gilchrist County, Florida. Years 

 ago on a visit to the Museum of the Geological Survey in 

 Tallahassee I saw the fragmentary fossils which Clarence 

 Simpson found in 193 1 and which were sent to the Ameri- 

 can Museum in New York for description. Some years 

 passed by, and by 1938 it was quite obvious that with the 

 Florida Survey being forced to specialize on economic 

 geology, there was no likelihood that anyone was going to 

 take an interest in the Thomas Farm locality. I decided to 

 explore the locality thoroughly. Herman Gunter and 

 Clarence Simpson of the Survey gave me every assistance, 

 marked maps and made sketches. Finally, with some dif- 

 ficulty, because there are numberless "Thomas Farms" in 

 our county, the Raeford Thomas Farm was located in the 

 scrub about eight miles northeast of Bell. A further dif- 

 ficulty was that all the dim roads in the scrub change from 

 year to year, as ruts get too deep and new routes are found. 



Gilchrist County is self-contained. Strangers do not come 

 there, and the residents are suspicious of anyone who comes 

 in from even a few miles away. With the aid of William 

 and Barbara Schevill, who were my companions several 

 years ago, we began to dig at the abandoned farm site. 

 There were the remains of the old well, and it was on the 

 spoil bank beside this well that Clarence Simpson found 



