AGE OF CORAL REEFS. 189 



are covered gives them an imposing appear- 

 ance, recalling the islands of the Pacific. 



But this is not the end of the story. Travel 

 ling inland from the shore-bluffs, we cross a low, 

 flat expanse of land, the Indian hunting-ground, 

 which brings us to a row of elevations called 

 the Hummocks. This hunting-ground, or Ever- 

 glade as it is also called, is an old channel, 

 changed first to mud-fiats and then to dry land 

 by the same kind of accumulation that is filling 

 up the present channels, and the row of hum- 

 mocks is but an old Coral Reef with the Keys 

 or islands of past days upon its summit. Seven 

 such Reefs and channels of former times have 

 already been traced between the shore-bluffs and 

 Lake Okee-cho-bee, adding some fifty thousand 

 years to our previous estimate. Indeed, upon 

 the lowest calculation, based upon the facts thus 

 far ascertained as to their growth, we cannot 

 suppose that less than seventy thousand years 

 have elapsed since the Coral Reefs already known 

 to exist in Florida began to grow. 



When we remember that this is but a small 

 portion of the peninsula, and that, though we 

 have no very accurate information as to the 

 aature of its interior, yet the facts already ascer- 

 tained in the northern part of the State, formed, 

 like its southern extremity, of Coral growth, justify 

 the inference that the whole peninsula is formed 



