76 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



as the "August gale", the fisL and all other ocean life suddenly dying 

 in hordes all along the southern (eastern) shore of Tampa Bay, on 

 Egmont Key, at its mouth, which was the most northern point, and 

 thence southward as far as Shark liiver, in Whitewater Bay, on the 

 coast. Thence fatal localities were to be found in the currents that set 

 southward through Bahia Honda Passage, through the Northwest Pas- 

 sage beyond Key West, and even out in the neighborhood of the far- 

 isolated Tortugas. 



Everywhere throughout this whole extent of coast, except in the 

 mouths of the rivers and in the shallow bayous, all the forms of sea- 

 life died as though strichen with a plague fatal alike to all, and were 

 drifted upon the beaches in long windrows so dense that near human 

 habitations men were obliged to unite in burying them to prevent a 

 pestilential stench, or to haul them away by wagon-loads to be pre- 

 pared for manure, as A^as done in some cases. Not only were swimming 

 fishes destroyed, but sponges, crabs (I saw upon the beaches thousands 

 of horseshoe-crabs laden with their chains of undischarged eggs), and 

 great numbers of mollusks. The oysters at the mouth of Manatee 

 liiver and in Tampa were spoiled (in imagination if not in fact!), and the 

 excellent clams of Sarasota Bay became weak, tasteless, and of a re- 

 pulsive green hue at their edges. A graphic account has been given 

 me in a letter received from Mr. Charles Moore, jr., keeper of the light- 

 house on Egmont Key, at the entrance of Tampa Bay, the original of 

 which I transmit herewith. This i)oint witnessed the height of the ca- 

 lamity', and as Mr. Moore was present during the whole season, his ac- 

 count of facts is valuable. Mr. Moore writes: 



Egmont Key, Fla., February 20, 1881. 

 Sir : As I promised to give you all the information about the fish 

 dying at this station, I will do so to the best of my ability. The first 

 dead fish we saw was on Sunday, October 17, as the tide came in. There 

 were thousands of small fish floating on the water, most of them quite 

 dead. 1 saw only one kind the first day; they were small fish, four 

 or five inches long; the Key West smackmen called them "brim". 

 They were a new fish to me. The next day other kinds were dying all 

 along the shore; the pompano was about the next to give in, and by the 

 25th October nearly all kinds of fish that inhabit these waters were 

 dying, except the ray family. I don't remember of ever seeing any 

 stinger or whipper ray, or the devil-fish, as we call the largest ones of 

 the lay family. From the 2oth of October to the 10th of November was 

 the worst time ; during that time the stench was so bad that it was im- 

 possible to go on the beach. I sent my family to Manatee, and the as- 

 sistant keeper and myself shut ourselves up in our rooms and kept 

 burning tar, coffee, sulphui-, rags, etc., night and day in order to stand it. 

 It was warm, damp, and cahn weather. They continued to die for about 

 six weeks ; they kept getting less every day. I counted seventy sharks 



