Gushing.] *^t)b [Xov. 6, 



one side rounded, the other cut in at the edges, or rabbetted so to say. 

 Tlie tenon-like portion was gouged out midway, transversely pierced, 

 and furnished with a smooth peg or pivot over which the cordage 

 turned. I have already mentioned the finding of a paddle near the 

 mouth of the inlet canal — which is shown in Fig. 8, PI. XXXIL 

 It was neatly shaped, the handle round and lengthy, although 

 burned off at the end, and the blade also long, leaf-shaped, and 

 tapered to a sharp point, convex or beveled on one side, flat or 

 slightly spooned or concave on the other. The splintered gunwales 

 and a portion of the prow of a long, light cypress-wood canoe, and 

 various fragments of a large but clumsier boat of some soft spongy 

 kind of wood — gumbo-limbo, probably — were found down toward the 

 middle of the court. Not far from the remams of these I came across an 

 ingenious anchor. It consisted of a bunch of large triton-shells roughly 

 pierced and lashed together with tightly twisted cords of bark and fibre 

 so that the long, spike-like ends stood out radiatingly, like the points of 

 a star. They had all been packed full of sand and cement, so as to 

 render them, thus bunched, sufficiently heavy to hold a good-sized boat. 

 Near the lower edge of the eastern bench lay another anchor. It was 

 made of flat, heart-shaped stones, similarl}^ perforated and so tied and 

 cemented together with fibre and a kind of red vegetable gum and sand, 

 that the points stood out radiatingly in precisely the same manner. Yet 

 another anchor was formed from a single boulder of coraline limestone 

 a foot in diameter. Partly by nature, more by art, it was shaped to re- 

 semble the head of a porpoise perforated for attachment at the eye- 

 sockets. Balers made from large conch shells crushed in at one side, 

 or of wood, shovel shaped, or else scoop shaped, with handles turned in, 

 were abundant ; as were also nets of tough fibre, both coarse and fine, 

 knitted quite as is the common netting of our own fisherman to-day, in 

 form of fine-meshed, square dip-nets, and of coarse-meshed, compara- 

 tively large and long gill-nets To the lower edges of these, sinkers 

 made from thick, roughly perforated umboidal bivalves, tied together in 

 bunches, or else from chipped and notched fragments of heavy clam 

 shells, were attached, while to the upper edges, floats made from gourds, 

 held in place by fine net-lashings, or else from long sticks or square- 

 ended blocks, were fastened. Around the avenues of the court I was 

 interested to find netting of coarser cordage weighted with unusually 

 large-sized or else heavily bunched sinkers of shell, and supplied at the 

 upper edges with long, delicately tapered gumbo-limbo float-pegs, those 

 of each set equal in size, each peg thereof partially split at the larger end, 

 so as to clamp double half-turns or ingeniously knotted hitches of the 

 neatly twisted edges-cords with which all were made fast to the nets. 

 Now these float pegs, of which many sets were secured, varying from 

 three and a half to eight inches in length of pegs, were so placed on 

 the nets, that in consequence of their tapering forms they would turn 

 against the current of the tide whichever way it flowed, and would con- 



