THE OPEN SEA BEACH 293 



might suppose he was gathering shells on the beach 

 at Charlotte Harbor or at Tampa Bay but for 

 the fact that the Disston material is semi-fossil. 

 Heilprin dredged these same fossil marine shells 

 in Lake Okeechobee. Among the shells Venus 

 cancellata outnumbers all others and the beds 

 have been named after it. Venus mortoni, as 

 ponderous as it is to-day is common, and all the 

 west coast Fasciolarias, Murices, Fulgurs, Car- 

 diums, Lucinas, Macomas, Tellinas are found 

 everywhere in these Pleistocene beds. In short 

 they contain a complete duplication of the present 

 marine life of the west coast; here the shells lie 

 scattered across the State just as if they had fallen 

 out of the ranks and died during their migration 

 from the Atlantic to the Gulf. Since then the 

 State has been elevated and extended nearly two 

 and a half degrees to the southward, or to within 

 a degree of the Tropic of Cancer. On its southern 

 extension it has been crowded against the Gulf 

 Stream, and the warm temperate forms can not 

 exist in this tepid sea. 



Going east through the canal from Okeechobee 

 to Palm Beach one finds while nearing the sea a 

 number of tropical marine shells (fossil) in the 



