364 CERTAIN ANTIQUITIES OF THE FLORIDA WEST-COAST. 



this elevation. Luckily, great festoons of tough vines clung to the lower limbs of 

 this tree, for in shifting my position, I slipped and fell, and was caught by these 

 vines, to the salvation of my bones, probably, since by the force of the fall some of 

 the vines were torn away, revealing the inner side of this platform and the fact that 

 it was almost vertically faced up with conch-shells ; their larger, truncated and 

 spiral ends, laid outward and in courses so regular, that the effect was of a mural 

 mosaic of volutes. I hastily tore away more of the vines, and found that this 

 faced-up edge of the platform extended many feet in either direction from the old 

 gumbo limbo. I may say here, that on occasion of two later visits I cleared the 

 facade of this primitive example of shell architecture still more ; was enabled, 

 indeed, when I last visited the place — since I was then accompanied by a consider- 

 able force of workmen — to entirely expose its inner side and its southern end. 

 Thus was revealed — even more completely than is shown in Plate XXIX — a 

 parallelogramic and level platform, some three and a half feet high and twelve 

 yards in width, by nearly thrice as many in length. It was approached from the 

 inner side by a graded way that led obliquely along the curved ascent up from the 

 mangrove swamp, to a little step-like, subsidiary platform half as high and some 

 twelve feet square, which joined it at right-angles, just beyond the point shown at 

 the extreme right of the picture here given. The top of this lesser step, and the 

 approaches to either side of it, were paved with very large, uniform-sized clam- 

 shells, laid convex sides upward, and as closely and regularly as tiles. The lower 

 or southern end of the main platform was rounded at the corners, and rounded also 

 on either side of the sunken ascent midway, in which the longer of the graded 

 ways I have described terminated. Contemplating the regularity of this work, its 

 central position and its evident importance, as indicated by the several graded 

 ways leading to it from distant points, I could not doubt that it had formed the 

 foundation of an imposing temple-structure, and this idea was further carried out 

 by the presence at its northern end of two small, but quite prominent altar-like 

 mounds." 



Although Mr. Cushing seems carefully to have looked into this matter, we 

 believe him to be mistaken in attributing an aboriginal origin to this wall of conch- 

 shells. 



We four times visited Demorey Key with a force of men to dig. 



The elongated bench described by Mr. Cushing is a portion of an ordinary 

 aboriginal shell ridge, which ' seemed to us to have been somewhat flattened to 

 serve as a site for a modern house and garden. In fact, we are informed by 

 "Johnny" Smith, Mr. Cushing' s guide, that at the time of his visit to Demorey 

 Key, a house, partly in ruins, occupied a portion of this level space just by the 

 little platform. When we first visited the key (March, 1900), we saw a frame 

 house which must have occupied the site of the older one. This house also had 

 been removed when last we stopped at the key. 



The wall of conch-shells, shown in our plan (Fig. 6) by the solid line A to B, 

 does not surround a parallelogram, but extends about 100 feet only on the inner, or 



