CHAPTER X 

 In tHe Primeval Forest 



IN another chapter I have traced the develop- 

 ment of the hammock from a single live oak 

 beside a sink or swamp to the tall, solidly 

 grown tropical forest. Prominent among such 

 Florida forests is, or rather was, the great Miami 

 hammock. Formerly it stretched for miles along 

 the shore of Biscayne Bay, occupying most of the 

 site of what is now the city, and extended half a 

 mile inland. On account of the encroachment of 

 this flourishing settlement much of it has been 

 destroyed and only a remnant of its former beauty 

 and stateliness remains. 



It occupies what is probably the highest ground 

 of any part of southeastern Florida and some of it 

 was probably the first to be lifted above the sea 

 after the great Pleistocene subsidence. It is quite 

 certain that when the forest covering this site 

 began to develop, the outer peninsula ending in 



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