80 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
discovered in opening up a new rock quarry in Citrus 
County, midway between Floral City and Istachatta. 
The item in the Citrus County Chronicle (published at 
Inverness), after describing the stalactites, fossils, ete., 
but saying nothing about ferns, closed with the remark 
that the proprietor was “loath to desecrate this bit of 
underground wonderland, but being of a frugal [or 
rather avaricious?] nature the prospects for turning it 
into some of the coin of the realm will probably prevail 
over his regard for it as a geological asset. And there 
will probably be no dissenters in these parts, for it has 
incurred great expense to equip the plant.” 
I was in the West at the time, but on returning to 
Florida early in October I wrote to Mrs. Noble and 
asked her if that meant the destruction of our fern lo- 
cality near Pineola ; and she replied that she thought it 
did, and “‘sic transit gloria mundi.” But noticing that 
the item stated that the quarry property was midway 
between Floral City and Istachatta and embraced 26 
acres of rock (while Pineola is about 5 miles from 
Floral City and 2 from Istachatta, and has much less 
rock than that), I wrote again to Mrs. Noble and urged 
her to investigate further. She kindly did so, and wrote 
me on Nov. 22 that the locality had not yet been dis- 
turbed, but the presence of some surveyors’ stakes and 
prospectors’ tools made the outlook rather discouraging. 
In a later letter she mentioned that the rights to all the 
limestone rock in the neighborhood had been purchased 
for $60,000. 
I also advised her to write for the Chronicle a pro- 
test against the proposed devastation of that interesting 
locality, and try to bring the matter to the attention 
. Of the State Federation of Women’s Clubs, who have 
recently acquired control of Paradise Key or Royal 
Palm Hammock at the south end of the Everglades, 
for the purpose of preserving it in a more or less natural _ 
