IV PREFACE. 



unfortunately, not quite as ample as could have been desired, and the 

 results obtained perhaps not such as might have been anticipated. But 

 the material collected, only a portion of which has thus far been elabor- 

 ated, is sufficient to indicate the general faunal features of the region 

 traveled over. The Gulf dredgings were all confined to shallow water, 

 not exceeding twenty feet in depth. 



A few words bearing upon the history of exploration of that myste- 

 rious body of water Okeechobee which had so long eluded research, 

 and about which so many mythical fancies have clung, will not be amiss 

 in this place. 



It is not exactly easy to discover the earliest references to this lake. 

 Captain Bernard Romans, who appears to have made an extended exam- 

 ination of the peninsula in the latter part of the last century, refers in his 

 "Concise Natural History of East and West Florida" (p. 285)* to a large 

 interior lake, unquestionably Okeechobee, as follows : " This is the river 

 [St. Lucia], which, as i was told by a Spanish pilot of fishermen of good 

 credit, proceeds from the lake Mayacco, a lake of seventy-five miles in 

 circumference by his account. The man told me that he had formerly 

 been taken by the savages, and by them carried a prisoner, in a canoe, by 

 way of this river, to their settlements on the banks of the lake ; he says, 

 that at the disemboguing of the river, out of the lake, lies a small cedar 

 island ; he also told me that he saw the mouth of five or six rivers, but 

 whether falling out of, or into, the lake, i could not learn of him ; probably 

 some of the many rivers i crossed in my journey across this peninsula, 

 fall into it, and it is not improbable that St. John's river originates in it. 

 The large river in Charlotte harbour [meaning the Caloosa, doubtless], 

 by the direction of its course, meridian situation, and great width, i judge, 

 might, perhaps, spring from the same fountain ; however, the savages of 

 Taloffo Ochase told me, that in going far south, they go round a large 

 water, emptying itself into the west sea, i. e., Gulph of Mexico. 



"Thus much have i been able to learn of this water, the exploring of 

 which i always intended ; whether there is really this lake, or not, i will 

 not be positive, but the above circumstances, joined to a dark account, 

 which the savages give of going up St. John's, and coming down another 

 river, to go into some far southern region of East Florida (on which 

 account the name of Ylacco, and the name given to St. Lucia by the 

 savages, both conveying indecent meanings, are by them given to these 

 rivers) seems to confirm it. That there is some such great water, is 

 further to be gathered from the profusion of fresh water which this river, 



* Printed in New York, 1776. From a pencil inscription in a copy of this work in the 

 possession of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, it would appear that but 

 very few numbers were ever distributed. It was sold by R. Aitken, Front Street, New York, 

 "opposite the London Coffee House." 



