Cedar Keys 



develops palmlike from terminal buds. The 

 stout leaves are very rigid, sharp-pointed and 

 bayonet-like. By one of these leaves a man 

 might be as seriously stabbed as by an army 

 bayonet, and woe to the luckless wanderer who 

 dares to urge his way through these armed 

 gardens after dark. Vegetable cats of many 

 species will rob him of his clothes and claw his 

 flesh, while dwarf palmettos will saw his bones, 

 and the bayonets will glide to his joints and 

 marrow without the smallest consideration for 

 Lord Man. 



The climate of these precious'^islets is sim- 

 ply warm summer and warmer summer, corre- 

 sponding in time with winter and summer in the 

 North. The weather goes smoothly over the 

 points of union betwixt the twin summers. Few 

 of the storms are very loud or variable. The 

 average temperature during the day, in De- 

 cember, was about sixty-five degrees in the 

 shade, but on one day a little damp snow fell. 



Cedar Key is two and one half or three miles 

 in diameter and its highest point is forty-four 

 I 133 ] 



