366 CERTAIN ANTIQUITIES OF THE FLORIDA WEST-COAST. 



had seen in process of collection by Josselyn, the former owner of the key. 

 Several such piles are in close proximity to the leveled space at Demorey Key. 



There is no defined outline of a parallelogram save along the wall, the other 

 portions being the simple, gradual slope of an ordinary shell ridge. 



The wall itself seemed to us to have been built by some settler in the present 

 century, primarily to serve as a sort of retaining wall to keep in place great num- 

 bers of conchs which lie loosely behind the wall, and thus when loam was superim- 

 posed, to broaden his vegetable garden. The slope of the shell heap on the 

 inner side is much steeper than on the outer side where it was not necessary to 

 build a wall. 



We removed portions of the shell wall at various places and dug into the mass 

 of material beyond at the level of the base, finding glass, iron and earthenware, 

 one bit with a glaze. 



We examined also the subsidiary platform referred to by Mr. Gushing and 

 shown on our plan at E. The pavement of large clam shells, the convex side 

 upward, described by him, no longer remained, though here and there were clam 

 shells mostly with the convex side upturned. Young Smith, a brother of Mr. 

 Gushing' s guide, informed us that he had lived upon Demorey Key after Mr. dish- 

 ing' s visit, and had displaced many of these shells. Digging into the platform we 

 discovered it to be made of loose conchs with a certain amount of undisturbed, 

 black loam on top, in all a little over one foot in thickness. Just below this loam, 

 and over the conch-shells, was a large fireplace leading us to suppose that the plat- 

 form had been built for use as a kitchen. Beneath was the black surface loam of 

 the shell heap. One foot down, among the conch-shells of the platform, and just 

 above the black loam of the original surface, under the fireplace, we found a num- 

 ber of large pieces of glass showing marks of fire. 



Mound Island, Lee County. 



Mound Island, or Johnson's Key, as it is also called, is in Estero Bay, about 

 seven miles in a straight line in a southeasterly direction from Punta Rassa, and 

 may be reached by a sheltered way behind islands, or from the Gulf through Carlos 

 Pass. 1 Mound Island, where we were courteously received by Mrs. F. M. Johnson 

 in the absence of her husband, the owner, is, in our opinion, the most typical of all 

 the Key-dwellers islands. We were informed by Mrs. Johnson that its area is 

 about 140 acres. A survey we have seen makes it about 128 acres in extent. In 

 addition to a general shell deposit over most of the island, and numerous graded 

 ways, courts, small canals and at least one hooked-shaped breakwater at the mouth 

 of a canal, a great canal, still admitting water in the highest tides, running nearly 

 N. E. and S. W., bisects the island. Beginning in the northeastern portion of the 

 island, this highway for canoes, a little farther on, passes the burial mound of the 

 island, and at about two-thirds of its length goes between embankments of shell, 



1 Government Chart, No. 174, shows Little and Big Carlos Pass. They are now united. 

 Mound Island lies nearly two miles in an easterly direction from the Pass. 



