1896.] ODi [Gushing. 



I deem it unnecessary to give further details of our operations, save to 

 say that three or four of us worked side by side in eacli section, digging 

 inch by incli, and foot by foot, horizontally through the muck and rich 

 lower strata, standing or crouching the while in puddles of mud and 

 water ; and as tims went on we were pestered morning and evening by 

 swarms and clouds of mosquitoes and sand-flies, and during the midhours 

 of the day, tormented by the fierce tropic sun heat, pouring down, even 

 thus early in the season into this little shut-up hollow among the breath- 

 less mangroves. After the first day's work, however, I was left no longer 

 in doubt as to the unique outcome of our excavations, or as to the desir- 

 ability of searching through the entire contents of the court, howsoever 

 difficult the task might prove to be ; for relics not only of the kind already 

 described, but of new and even more interesting varieties, began at once 

 to be found, and continued to be found increasingly as we went on day 

 after day, throughout the entire five weeks of our work in this one little 

 place. I may be permitted to add that never in all my life, despite the 

 sutt'e rings this labor involved, was I so fascinated with or interested in 

 anything so much, as in the finds thus daily revealed. Partaking of my 

 enthusiasm, the men, too, soon became so absorbed that they actually 

 hated to see the sun go down and to thus be compelled to abandon their 

 work even until the coming of another da}'. 



As the northwesterly half of the court became cleared of its contents, 

 and the bottom was thus more and more revealed, we found that it was 

 generally concave, or perh ips I may say, tray-shaped; that is, compara- 

 tively shallow at the sides — not more than from eighteen inches to three 

 feet deep — but throughout the middle and thence toward the mouths of 

 the two canals, from four and-a-half to five-and-a-half feet deep. 

 Extending along the bottom, in toward this central deeper portion, from 

 both the southwesterly and northwesterly margins at about equidistant 

 intervals of twenty feet, were several straight, low benches or tongues, 

 of compacted shell and tough clay-marl (shown in plan,Plate XXXI), from 

 twenty-five to thirty feet long and ft-om eight to twelve feet wide, level 

 on top and built to a height gradually increasing from a few inches, 

 where they joined the boundary banks, to nearly two feet at their rounded 

 ends, so as to form low, originally submerged, slightly inclining piers, as 

 it were. Along the opposite or eastcn side was a similar, although con- 

 tinuous bench, uniformly some fifteen feet wide from its rounded upper 

 end just below the mouth of the inlet canal, to a point about thirty feet 

 below, whence it gradually narrowed to a width of less than eight feet 

 at its lower end near the mouth of the outlet canal. Finally, across the 

 extreme upper end or corner of the court, that is just to the left of and 

 above the mouth of the same inlet canal, extended a like, although slightly 

 wider and shorter bench. Thus the whole central portion of the court, 

 as well as the spaces between the tongues or benches, liad been left 

 open and deep, as if for the free passage of canoes. Along the sides and 

 around the ends of these in-reaching benches of shell and clay, occur- 



