THE BUILDING OF THE LAND n 



and many of the corals, because of exposure to the 

 atmosphere, were killed. The sea broke up the 

 exposed surface of the reef, worked it over, and 

 scattered the debris, forming thus a wide foun- 

 dation for future growth of coral. 



Samuel Sanford has claimed that this, or some 

 more recent or subsequent uplift, carried the land 

 to perhaps two hundred feet above its present level. 

 Had there been so great an elevation all Lower 

 Florida, including the keys, together with the pres- 

 ent bays and sounds necessarily would have been 

 continuous dry land. As the area is not large, its 

 surface flat, its structure quite uniform, and its 

 climate throughout, especially near the sea, quite 

 the same, it seems certain that had so great an uplift 

 ever taken place there would be to-day but one 

 common assemblage of dry -land animals and plants 

 throughout, or in the warmer part, at least, of the 

 region. There can be no doubt that most all of the 

 species would have been distributed over the entire 

 territory. This, however, is not the case. Actually 

 we find three more or less circumscribed areas of 

 dry -land life occupying Lower Florida. First, the 

 Lower Keys are inhabited by an almost strictly 

 tropical flora, and within their borders there are 



