CHAPTER XIV 



The Wonders of Ajax Reef 



M 



OST of us are familiar with many 

 beautiful landscapes of mountains or 

 plain or of wide ocean reaches and 

 some know the glories of a tropic 

 night when the sky is brilliant with big stars that 

 show their perspective, but comparatively few have 

 gazed on the wonderful scenes beneath the sea. 

 My first experience in actually seeing and going 

 about among the living fish, corals, and other 

 marine animals of a coral reef was an event of 

 my life. 



Ajax Reef is a little less than three miles off 

 Elliott's Key, and is distant about eighteen nauti- 

 cal miles from Miami in a south by east direction. 

 It is only a small part of the long series of reefs 

 which I have referred to in the chapter on the 

 Florida Keys. In places they are awash or show 

 a bit above the sea in low tides and along them 

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