FOSSIL HUMAN REMAINS AT VERO, FLORIDA 



33 



ridge for 300 miles; for over 100 miles the barrier incloses a strip 

 of water between it and the mainland, known as the Indian River, 

 though it is really a salt-water sound. Paralleling the present 

 coastal barrier and the Indian River behind it is an older 

 barrier ridge which crosses the canal near the spillway and runs 

 for many miles both north and south of Vero. To the west 

 of it, before the drainage canal was dug, the region was frequently 



Fig. 7. — The present upland country southwest of the spillway. The area of 

 the Pleistocene bog. Drainage canal in foreground with tributary canal in middle 

 distance. Lumps of the black sandstone conspicuous upon dump piles of both canals. 



under water after storms, according to testimony, and in earlier 

 times it presumably was more continuously marshy, since it 

 more nearly approached the present condition of the Indian 

 River. 



But with uplift, or withdrawal of the sea, the marsh was grad- 

 ually drained, and a thin covering of wind-blown white sand 

 drifted over the old bog surface, burying it to a depth of several 

 feet. This wind-blown sand forms layer d and constitutes the 

 present upland surface. 



