dishing.] Otti [Nov. 6, 



Immediately after completing this examination of what I regarded as 

 one of the most recent and highly developed works of the ancient key- 

 builders, I proceeded down the Sound to St. James City, at the south- 

 ern end of Pine Island. Fortunately I bore friendly letters of introduc- 

 tion from Colonel J. M. Kreamer, of Pliiladelphia, to Captain E.White- 

 side, the principal resident of the little city. He welcomed me most 

 hospitably, and extended to me whatever help it was possible for him 

 to give. 



Curiously enough, the three or four places next examined by me after 

 my arrival at St. James City, were as illustrative of the heyinriirKjs of 

 the key-dweller modes of life as had been the remains I had last ex- 

 plored, of their later development. 



At the extreme southeastern point of Pine Island occurred the first of 

 these. It consisted chiefly of a single long and, throughout the lower 

 portions of its course, double-crested shell embankment, from four to 

 nine feet high. I was at once struck by the fact that this great shell 

 ridge, which was more than thirty -five hundred feet in length, was made 

 up in parts, or comparatively short, straight sections, placed end to end, 

 so that its general contour was more or less polygonal, for it partially 

 encircled a wide mangrove swamp on its inner or landward side, within 

 which could be faintly seen here and there low shell-bank enclosures 

 such as I have so frequently described heretofore. I have said that this 

 shell ridge was in some places doiible, or rather double-crested. These 

 double or parallel crests along its summit were here and there still so 

 sharp that they distinctly appeared to have been formed by deposition 

 from above. This suggested to me that in the beginning, a series of 

 straight, narrow platforms or scaffolds had been erected end to end 

 over the curved outlying reef here, and that shells — perhaps mere refuse 

 at first, precisely as I had imagined when looking at the old Fishing 

 Station, above — had been cast down along either side of these platforms 

 until a nucleus of the ridge was thus formed. At two points, 

 however, the works had I)een widened and more regularly built up, as 

 though at these points the beginnings of characteristic terraces and of at 

 least one foundation had been made. But nowhere else was there evi- 

 dence that this ancient structure had progressed much beyond its earliest, 

 its fishiug-station-stage of construction. It appeared to me that ere it 

 had been possible for the ancient builders to carry their work here 

 further towards making a permanent home, some hurricane or great 

 tidal wave had overwhelmed them, or had so far destroyed their station 

 or incipient settlement as to render its further completion undesirable 

 or impossible ; and that thus we had preserved to us in this place an 

 evidence of their modes of beginning such stations or settlements. 

 Again, at the opposite or southwestern point or corner of Pine Island 

 had stood another great shell ridge, higher, wider, generally curved 

 also, and a little further progressed towards formation as a i)ernia- 

 nent settlement ; for at its upper end there remained evidence tliat it 



