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alone sayed my companion from feeling the full force of his 
magnanimity. Never have I seen any thing so awfully, so 
horribly terrific, as this rattlesnake in anger. Even the gigantic 
alligator, with his iron sides, and formidable tusks, ever grinning 
a orribly, with ghastly smiles, bears in my estimation no com- 
parison. The fangs of this reptile were double, and an inch 
and an half in length.—-Nothing but the difficulty of procuring 
proper accommodations for conveying him to Georgia, pre- 
vented me from saving his life, and taking him on with me to 
introduce to you, when I returned north.’ 
A cursory examination was made of the coastal sand-dunes 
between Delray and Palm Beach. Delray is situated about the 
southern extremity of the Palm Beach limestone. This lime- 
stone, however, has had little or no effect upon the vegetation, as 
it is mostly buried deep beneath the coastal sands. 
The dune hammock here is interesting and often picturesque. 
The shrubs and trees are, for the most part, similar to the ones 
that once clothed the dunes near Miami, but here they grow 
thickly over vast areas, and they show a greater variety in the 
shades of green. The forest covering the part of the dunes sloping 
toward the ocean, however, is very stunted. For long distances 
the trees are only about as high as one’s head. The crowns, 
moreover, are flattened on top by the continuous action of the 
wind from the ocean, and instead of reaching skyward, all the 
woody vegetation is pushed over, as if leaning away from the 
water or from the prevailing wind. Whole forests thus look as if a 
mighty hand had brushed across them and pressed them down. 
On the leeward side of the dunes the arboreous vegetation is 
more normally developed. Where the dunes were tall, the trees 
were large and the forest extensive. There also the cabbage tree 
(Sabal Palmetto) was a prominent feature of the vegetation. 
Although the Palm Beach limestone is normally buried beneath 
the sand of the dunes, there is an outcrop on the leeward side of a 
dune about midway between Delray and Palm Beach. Some 
of the deeply buried parts of the rock were long ago leached out 
and a portion of the upper part then caved in, thus forming some 
shallow caverns. A strangling-fig (Ficus aurea) growing on the 
face of one of these caves has sent down roots which now partly 
obstruct the mouth of the cavern. (See accompanying plate.) 
