78 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



markets, principally the latter. These smacks found that, as before, the 

 brownish, discolored water, "thick and glutinous" (as one described it), 

 which seemed the cause of the mischief, lay in streaks drifting with the 

 tide. The small fishes that swam into one of these patches (which had 

 a vertical thickness apparently coextensive with the depth of the sea at 

 that place) seemed unable to get out before they were stupefied, and 

 died as though by suffocation. Even the large carnivorous swimmers, 

 like the sharks and porpoises, often suffered the same t>ite, though fre- 

 quently they would have strength to turn back and flounder out. In 

 the pure element, between the deadly streaks, fish were as abundant as 

 ever at the distance from the coast Avhere the smacks operated, and their 

 wells were often filled with promptness; but it was found that it was im- 

 possible, even by going straight out to the Tortugas, to run the gauntlet 

 of the poisoned water floating between there and Cape Sable, since if 

 once it was encountered, and entered the well, a very few minutes suf- 

 ficed to bring about the death of every fin of the cargo. I have a few 

 notes, culled from the Key West journals, which show that a loss of 

 nearly $10,000 resulted from only four or five such misfortunes. The 

 consequence was that for some weeks the fishing throughout .all that 

 Ijart of the Gulf had to be wholly abandoned, involving the idleness of a 

 large number of vessels and their crews. 



, Seeking an explanation of the phenomenon, I everywhere asked what 

 was the local theory to account for the matter, and was almost always 

 told with confidence thut it was due to an overflow of swamps and the 

 pouring into the Gulf of bodies of fresh water poisoned by a decoction of 

 noxious "acids", etc., leeched from the roots which had been soaking for 

 years in the pent up floods — a theory which I fail to find supported by 

 such tacts as I ha\'e been able to learn. 



Those who do put faith in the sufliciency of this explanation, point out 

 that the winter of 1877-'78 was unusually wet, and that this last fall 

 saw more rain falling in South Florida than ever before in the recollec- 

 tion of the people there. This is probably true; and it may be, as as- 

 serted, that the years heretofore when fish have died have been those 

 noted for their excessive rainfiill, but 1 have not compared meteoro- 

 logical records. It is no doubt true also that if a sea-fish should be 

 plunged into water saturated with the tannin derived from decomj^osing 

 roots and stems of palmetto, oak, sumach, etc., which do abound in the 

 Everglades, he would find it eminently unhealthy. But turther than 

 this the hypothesis will not hold. It requires us to believe that the 

 overflow of a small surface of swamp-land shall so tincture the wide 

 area of the Gulf as to destroy its healthfulness through several weeks, 

 while the tides are ceaselessly swinging back and forth, and rapid cur- 

 rents continuously replace the water of every part with new and send 

 the old elsewhere. This is preposterous. Moreover, provided it was 

 true of the Manatee River (as is claimed), or of the Caloosahatchie far- 

 ther south, why should it not equally be true of the Atlantic coast, 



