310 MISCELLANEOUS INVESTIGATION IN FLORIDA. 
The town of Marco, at the northern end of the island, is, as previously 
mentioned, where Mr. Cushing made his great collection of aboriginal objects, 
mainly of wood. These objects, as the reader is aware, lay in muck which forms 
the bottom of a small artificial basin in the shell deposit, formerly connected by 
a short canal with the neighboring water. 
It is needless here to dwell on Mr. Cushing’s archeological discoveries at 
Marco, the most important that have been made in Florida, as his preliminary 
report,’ which his untimely end rendered final, gives a sufficiently clear description. 
There is one point, however, which archeologists would gladly know: How 
did this great assemblage of objects come to be in this particular spot?  Arti- 
ficial harbors, basins and canals abound among such keys of the Ten Thousand 
islands as were selected by the pile-dwellers as places of residence, yet, as we 
have said, no collection of objects has been met with elsewhere in the muck, 
though considerable digging has been done by explorers and by modern inhabi- 
tants of the keys. 
Objects of wood dropped or thrown ceremonially, into water, would float; and 
it is hardly likely that, at periods of low water, objects were buried ceremonially in 
the muck. It was Mr. Cushing's belief, personally expressed to us, that the objects 
found by him, contained in houses or in а temple on the banks of the court, or 
basin, had been forced down by some cataclysm of nature and subsequently held 
іп the muck. This would seem to be a reasonable explanation, and 
especially so as Mr. W. D. Collier, of Marco, through whose kind per- 
mission the basim was examined, informs us that in the year 1873 a 
Fra. 15.— Pendant of lime-rock. Marco. Fig. 16.— Pendant of lime- Fig. 17.— Pendant of lime- Ета. 18.—Object of clay. 
(Full size.) rock. Marco. (Full size.) rock. Marco. (Full size.) Marco. (Full size.) 
tidal wave, brought on by a hurricane, did much damage at Marco and submerged 
the muck-pond in which the objects were found by Mr. Cushing. 
On the other hand, it might be asked, if buildings were thus destroyed, why. 
in view of the preservative qualities of the muck, the debris was not preserved with 
the objects which were present. On the whole, the question is an interesting one. 
A careful search of the surface of the shell fields of Marco resulted in the 
discovery of a number of tools wrought from entire shells, some of which differ 
somewhat from those described and figured in our former report on this region. 
Varieties, hitherto undescribed, from Marco; from Goodland Point, Key Marco; from 
Chokoloskee Key and from other localities, will be given at the close of this report. 
1 Op. cit. 
