INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, PHILADELPHIA. 



our visit the foliage wore an autumnal aspect, the sere and purple leaves, 

 the result of the recent cold wave, severely recalling the end of a northern 



season. 



OFF ST. MARTIN'S REEF AND THE HOMOSASSA RIVER. Somewhat to 

 the north of the mouth of the Homosassa River the coast is bordered 

 by a long line of broken reef, under whose lee we anchored the first 

 night after leaving Cedar Keys (February 14). Here, in water of 6-7 

 feet depth, we obtained, by means of the scoop-net and hook, numerous 

 sponges and several corals, the former of which thrives here in abun- 

 dance. A large specimen of the logger-head sponge was found to 

 measure nearly 17 inches in greatest diameter and eight inches in height. 

 A number of these were immediately put in alcohol, and others placed 

 on deck to dry, but the highly offensive odor resulting from decom- 

 position necessitated their early restoration to the oceanic medium. The 

 corals belonged to the genus Orbicella (0. [_Siiti'ri>ia~\ galaxid), and were 

 dead, but traces of the animal substance, still highly colored, showed that 

 their existence had but recently ended. I believe this is the most northern 

 point in the Gulf at which coral life has thus far been determined. 



On the following morning we pushed our skiff up the Homosassa. 

 My own observations were restricted to the lower two miles, but special 

 information as to the upper course was brought to me by Mr. Willcox, 

 who on many previous occasions ascended the stream to its source, for 

 a further distance of about six miles. The fountain is described as a 

 transparent pool of considerable depth, lodged in a basin of compact 

 limestone, probably of the same character and age as that which appears 

 not very far from the mouth of the river. At Wheeler's (left bank), 

 somewhat more than a mile from the Gulf, this limestone was exposed 

 at the time of our visit some one and a-half to two feet above the water, 

 which has honeycombed it in all directions. Great numbers of Mytihts 

 Iiatnatus are here attached to the rock. A number of caverns and sinks 

 appear some little distance from the bank, evidently excavated by the 

 water of the stream gaining access into the numerous fissures that 

 traverse, and are being cut into, the fundament. Large lumps of rock, 

 collected from a well-digging, show an unmistakable fossiliferous char- 

 acter, but the fossils are mainly in the form of casts or impressions, and 

 barely permit even of the determination of genera (mollusks). The 

 immediate border rock is much more compact, and in a rapid inspection 

 might be taken to be non-fossiliferous, but a magnifying lens readily 

 reveals its true nature. The innumerable casts and impressions of the 

 miliolite genera Biloculina, Triloculina, Quinqueloculina, Sphaeroidina, 

 and other kindred forms, clearly betray its foraminiferal structure, and 

 point to its deep-sea origin or formation. I propose to designate this 



