1896.] oZJ [Gushing. 



Exploration of Ancient Key Binellers' Bemains on the Oalf Coast of 



Florida. 



Plates XXV— XXXV. 



By Frank Hamilton CusMng. 



{Read before the American Philosophical Society, November G, 1S9G. ) 

 Introductory. 



Early in the spring of 1895, Captain W. B. Collier, of Key Marco, 

 southwestern Florida, found, while digging garden-muck from one of 

 the little mangrove-swamps (Section 14, Plate XXXI) that occur, like 

 filled-up coves, among the low-lying shell-banks surrounding his shore- 

 island home, several ancient wooden articles and some pieces of netted 

 cordage. He did not recognize as of artificial origin the first found of these 

 objects — so softened were they hy decay, so like the water-soaked frag- 

 ments of rotten timber and rootlets everywliere encountered in the 

 muck. But the twine-like appearance of some of the seeming root- 

 strands that clung to his digging tools, and the discovery, a little later, 

 of a beautifully shaped and highly polished ladle or cup made from 

 the larger portion of a whelk-, or conch-shell, led him to believe that 

 the strands were actual cordage, and that a noticeably curious block of 

 wood, which had been sliced through by his spade and cast aside, was 

 really an article fashioned by man. 



A few days later, Mr. Charles Wilkins, of Rochester, N. Y., chanced 

 to sail down that way from the little winter resort of Naples, some 

 fifteen miles north of Key Marco, to seek for tarpon, and thus to hear 

 of this find. 



Another guest at Naples, a traveler of wide experience and an accom- 

 plished scholar withal, Lieutenant-Colonel C. D. Durnford, of the Brit- 

 ish Army, had organized, a few days previously, an amateur expedition 

 to explore an ancient canal and several small burial mounds near by. 

 In this expedition, Mr. Wilkins had joined. He was therefore much 

 interested in what he heard at Marco, and passed a day in digging 

 there on his own account. He found close to the place that had been 

 opened by Captain Collier and his men, other remains, including por- 

 tions of two wooden cups — one of them somewhat charred — another 

 shell ladle, several pierced conch tool-heads, and a fairly well-preserved 

 animal figure-head of carved wood. When told by him of these finds. 

 Colonel Durnford, accompanied by his courageous wife, immediately 

 set forth for Marco. He had two small excavations made (in Sections 

 32, 33, Plate XXXI) as close to those that had previously been made 

 as was possible — for these holes were now flooded with water. Therein, 

 he found a piece of rope, more netting, fragments of gourd-shell, a 

 couple of well-worked little blocks, and a tray of wood, some pegs 

 fastened together with string, two billets, what he regarded as reni- 

 nants of a "fish-bone necklace," and a neatly pierced bivalve shell. 



