1896.] <^«^' [Gushing. 



courts farthest in had become filled, and were in turn wrought into 

 basins and gardens to replace the first that had been made ; for these 

 were now covered over and piled higher to form wide benches where- 

 upon the long mounds or foundations might be erected. Finally, aloft 

 on these greater elevations strong citadels of refuge alike from foe and 

 hurricane; storehouses, dwellingsof chiefs or leaders, and assembly-places 

 and temples had been builded, when at last these old people of the sea 

 came to abide there continually. This to me appeared to have been the 

 history in brief of the first development of such a phase of life as the an- 

 cient key I had examined that afternoon still plainly represented ; nor 

 did I find reason later to greatly modify these views. On the contrary, 

 of the many other shell keys that I examined during the following few 

 days, all still further illustrated, and some seemed strikingly to confirm, 

 even the most fanciful of these visions. 



This was especially true of three ke,ys which I explored the next day. 

 The first was known as Josselyn's Key. It had been cleared and culti- 

 vated as a fruit and vegetable garden many years before, but was now 

 abandoned and desolate and again overrun by brambles and weeds and 

 vines, with some few massive gumbo limbos and rubber trees standing 

 on its heights. The feature of special interest in this key was its cen- 

 tral court, which, while comparatively small — less than half an acre in 

 extent — was remarkably regular. Five very high and steep, mound- 

 capped elevations, sharply divided by deep, straight channels, that led 

 forth from the court divergingly toward the sea, formed its western side 

 and southern end, while its opposite side and end were formed by two 

 extensive platforms, also. exceedingly steep within, and nearly as high 

 as the elevations, and divided from these and from each other by 

 straight canals that led forth in northwardly directions, far out through 

 the mangrove-covered enclosures down toward which the platforms 

 were terraced. 



The court was very deep and so regular that it resembled the cellar of 

 an enormous elongated square house. It was marshy and overgrown 

 by cane-brakes, tall grasses, and green-barked willows. Near the 

 mouth of the principal canal, leading forth from the southeastern corner 

 of this court, and still invaded, as were two or three others of the canals, 

 by high-tide water, my skipper and I dug a deep square hole. The exca- 

 vation rapidly filled with water ; not, however, before we had found in 

 the yielding muck a shapely plummet or pendant of coral-stone and 

 two others of shell, many sherds of pottery, worked bones, charcoal, 

 and, more significant than all, a pierced conch-shell, still containing a 

 portion of its rotten wooden handle. Again here, the relics were more 

 abundant than on the heights above, and the structural nature of the 

 entire key was abundantly evident. 



From this place it was somewhat more than a mile, still east-south- 

 eastwardly, to the second islet, which was known as Demorey's Key. 

 It also had been cleared to a limited extent, by the man whose name it 



