202 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



turning them. In explanation of the briefness of my notes, I may 

 remark, Hint after leaving Key West I had no means of com- 

 municating with home until I reached Pnnta Rossn. I hur- 

 ried over my route to reach the latter point and telegraph 

 home, and if ' ' All well " was received in reply, I proposed re- 

 turning and subjecting tho island?, bays and rivers to a 

 thorough examination, and at the same time indulge in a 

 wander in the Everglades; but fate willed it otherwise 



Entering Shark River we noticed the light of Dr. Harris' 

 boat ahead and we made fast to her stern.' The entrance to 

 Shark River can easily lie found by observing the following 

 directions: l\orlh west from north Cape gable, about four 

 miles, will be noticed a heavily timbered cape projecting into 

 the Gulf- rounding this point, and keeping the timber to the 

 right hand, the aver will be discovered. As a heavy north- 

 east gala was blowing, the captain of the Dr. '3 craft had an- 

 chored a few hundred yards from the entrance, where we 

 were protected from the storm by the giant mangroves. This 

 is incorreotly palled a river, for it is a mere pass" leading from 

 the Cult to White Water Bay, and should be ramed Shark 

 Pass According to the U. S. military map of Florida, pub- 

 lished by tho War Department in 1S5G, Shark River enters 

 White Water Bay from the Everglades at a point 15 miles 

 northeast from our anchorage. While we question tho pro- 

 priety of using lli#wonl river as applied to this pass, we 

 are of the opinion that if the word Shark was ever appropri- 

 ately used as descriptive of any body of water, it is pec 

 applicable to this. 



The jide was ebbing ; the night set in dark and rainy, and 

 about 7 P. nr. the shark performance commenced. One re- 

 markable feature of the water along the southern portion of 

 the State is the presence of innumerable phosphorescent 

 animalcule, commonly called "lightning of the waters." 

 When the night is dark the movement of any body through the 

 ■water resembles the passage of a mass of pale fire. It appeared 

 as though all the sharks in Christendom had collected to at- 

 tend a camp or political meeting at this point. We have 

 wandered considerably, and sailed over many oceans, but 

 never saw even an approach to the number and size of the 

 sharks at this point. Their movements in every direction 

 rendered the water luminous. Until we retired for the 

 night they were visible, here, there and everywhere. They 

 -were dashing hither and thither with a rapidity that surprised 

 me. They would dart like lightning and double upon their 

 trucks with an ease thul astonished me. Their movements 

 and size could be determined by the phosphorsscence of the 

 water. Mullet pass into the rivers and passes with the tide 

 and out with the ebb, and it is probable that the sharks were 

 enjoying a feed of these toothsome fish. The water was 

 eighteen feet deep, and looking over the side of the boat 

 flashes of light not larger than the hand could be noticed, 

 probably proceeding from these monsters many feet below the 

 surface. About 8 e. m. one of the brutes struck the bow of the 

 boat a severe blow in one of his rushes to capture his prey, 

 and I denounced him for his stupidity. 



Although I had beat across Florida Bay in a severe gale, 

 my boat was comparatively tight, and made but little water. 

 For another hour I enjoyed my pipe and watched the voracious 

 monsters as they forwarded lour, chisse;e 1 and turm d corners. 

 At U i-. m. I arranged my bed and stretched myself for a 

 .snooze. I was just about to bid farewell to this world ami 

 exclaim with Sancho Panza, "Blessed is the man who invent 

 ed sleep, for it wrappeth one up like a cloak," when bang 

 came one of the monsters against the starboard side of the 

 boat, aud the dory trembled from stem to stern. Satisfied 

 that the boat had received some injury I turned out. lit my 

 lamp and examined the well to ascertain if the boat was leak- 

 ing. I made a hasty examination, and fancying that all was 

 right turned in. I awoke at 4 a. m. with a sensation of (noisi- 

 ness about my hips and found that the boat was leaking badly 

 and that the water was over the floor. I attributed the leak 

 to the butting proclivities of his sbarkship, and on examina- 

 tion at a later date developed the fact that the blow had 

 started a plank. 



Saturday the ram poured down in torrents, and a strong 

 gale was blowing from the northeast. At 1 p. m. the rain 

 ceased, and as I was anxious to see what was beyond I started 

 for White Water Bay. After beating for four miles, with 

 two fathoms of water in the channel, I entered the bay and 

 ■was greeted with the sight of a beautiful sheet of water 

 studded with Islands. It commenced raining in torrents, and 

 as considerable sea was running with a strong ebb tide, sailing 

 proved anything but a pleasant occupation, so I returned ana 

 anchored in a small bayou near the mouth of the river ami 

 out of tie way of quarrelsome sharks. The banks on each side 

 of the pass from the gulf to the bay, varied from four to eight 

 feet in height ; aud along each bank the herbage had been 

 closely cropped by deer. I have questioned many old coasters, 

 and those who professed to be familiar with the coast, and I 

 l.nve vet to find a person who has entered or explored White 

 Water Bay. 



From me map published by the War Department White 

 Water Hay is thirty miles long and fifteen broad. From ap- 

 pearances the bay is studded with islands, and unless the ex- 

 ploier keeps an eye to his compass or studies the tidal cur- 

 rents he may become bothered in navigating this sheet of 

 water. Thirty miles east of Fast Cape Sable a small stream 

 will be found, named the Hallalahalchee, which, according to 

 the map referred to, opens into the northeastern portion of the 

 bay. From the point -where this river or pass enters the bay 

 a westerly course will bring the wanderer to Shark Pass, dis- 

 tant thirty to ihiity-flve miles. I met an individual who en- 

 deavored to enter this long-named river in a ship's yawl, but 

 the tide was low and he grounded on the mud fiats. To the 

 east of this st ream was the main hunting-ground of the Indians 

 before their removal, and, as far as I am aware, the locality 

 lias not been visited by sportsmen. About the islands anil 

 mud flats to the westward will be found the winter home of 

 that most beautiful of ourplumaged birds, the flamingo. 



Sunday morning was clear, and as I was 



homo folks 1 determined 

 Dr. Harris, of Key Wcst.reque 

 on the Rogers Kiver, fifteen mi 

 the Chockaluskco, six miles fi 

 with his men on Frielay night, 

 great inducement to comply w 

 me that I could find pink curie 

 caiities. These are the only st 

 distance of abonl 150 miles. I 

 for the mouth of Rogers Km 

 Chatham Bay and leavli mis s 

 eastward. At the northeaster! 

 found Harney's Kiver, by whicl 

 By the military map Rogers I : 

 enters ihe southerly portion of 

 pOsite the mouth of the Okat.takat 



ke hay while the sun shone, 

 sled me to visit his settlements 

 les north of Shark Pass, and on 

 irther north, and, as I camped 

 r thought 1 would do so. A 

 ? the fact that the men assured 



ud flamingoes in those lo- 

 nenfs on tho coast for a 

 red a course north hy east 

 ■ossiug the deep bight of 



line twelve miles to the 



lion of this bight will be 



ades can be entered. 



is eight miles Ipnj tnr] 



I b ie id tt a is liny, op- 



hee River, which drains a, 



portion of the Everglade's. I inquired of Dr. Harris' man if 



he had ever explored Rogers River, and he replied that he had 

 never been two miles beyond the settlements. I endeavored 

 to enter Rogers Kiver, but the tide was low and the boat 

 grounded on the mud flats some distance from the river's 

 mouth. Leaving the river unvisited, I proceeded northward 

 and sighted the ChuckaluBkee River, with the intention of 

 visiting Dr. Harris' settlement at this point. The entrance 

 to this stream presents many obstructions in the way of coon 

 oyster bars. For two hundred yards the channel is very nar- 

 row and tortuous, winding bet vvecn the bars. Inside of the 

 bars I found a beautiful stream three to four hundred yards 

 wide, with two fathoms of water. It is nothing unusual to 

 find rivers along tho Florida coast obstructed at the mouth 

 with oyster bars and mud flats, and impassable at iowlide for 

 a boat drawing fifteen inches of water. The key on the north 

 side of this river is named Lostman's Key, and the one on the 

 south side McLaughlin's. Proceeding two miles up the river, 

 or, more properly speaking, pass, I sighted the Doe: 

 iog to the left, I landed, found a two-TOomed hut, but no 

 one to welcome me. Around the shanty 1 found several 

 acres of luxuriant bananas, but as the plants were not old 

 enough the luscious fruit was absent. As far as my observa- 

 tions extended the land on each side of the 1 iver was very 

 rich and above overflow. On this stream frost is unknown, 

 and the banana and other tropical fruitB can bo successfully 

 cultivated. As it was early in the season, I found the mos- 

 quitoes somewhat troublesome, and I took my departure. I 

 steered to the north, and anchored under the lee of one of 

 the Thousand Islands. 



Before leaving Key West I interviewed an old army guide 

 and pilot regarding the best mode of exploring the Thousand 

 Islands, and he assured me that no one had made the attempt, 

 and if I did so 1 would " come out missing." If time had 

 permitted 1 would have made the attempt, for, between com- 

 pass and tidal currents, to have lost my way would have been 

 impossible, in cruising along these islands I passed several 

 wide nnd deep channels with rapid tidal currents. These 

 channels are probably the outlets of large streams rising in the 

 Everglades, and if followed the main land would probably be 

 reached in from fifteen to twenty miles. To those who" are 

 fond of adventure the islands and main land between Shark 

 Pass and Pavilion Key presents a field worthy of notice. 

 During the trip the fisherman, hunter, naturalist and taxider- 

 mist would find ample employment. I hurried over tho route, 

 but it is probable that I shall visit this section during the 

 course of the ensuing winter", and lift the veil that overhangs 

 this unexplored and unknown region. I have "done" as 

 much of Florida as most men, but I have a hankering to do 

 up the region referred to. Ai, Fkesoo. 



SUMMMER WORK AT GLOUCESTER. 



U. S. S. Sr-KRDWF.l.!., > 



GtocoESTiiK, Mass., Sept. 2a, 1878.) 

 Ebitob Forbst and Steeam : 



As our summer work is over, a brief resume of its progress 

 and results may be of value, and will probably partially re 

 deem my promise. 



We began work on the 15th of July, and have carried it on 

 until yesterday, interrupted only by occasional bad weather. 

 Some ilelay to make th« necessary changes in the fitting of 

 the vessel, and now and then a day idle through embarrass- 

 ment with our riches, the work of the day previous having 

 overburdened the scientific corps wii.li creatures to be 

 classified, described, sorted and preserved. 



Those days have not been altogether lost to those of us wdio 

 care for fiah and birds, from a practical point of view, and 

 who, on the adjacent banks and beaches, have exacted tribute 

 with line and gun of the cod and bay birds, or have strolled 

 or driven to some one of the many magnificent outlooks upon 

 the ocean, which make of the suburbs of the quaint old fishing 

 town one of the most delightful of quiet summer resorts 

 Bass Rock, Staggs Rock, The Chasm, Magnolia, Norman's 

 Noc, Brace Cove, Grape Vine Cove, aud, grandest of them all, 

 Tuekcrmen's Rocks, from which, at one coup d'wil, we have 

 three-fourths of the horizon in view at once. Way up to the 

 northward the peaks of Agamenlian, in Maine, break first the 

 curve, then the Isle of Shoals, m New Hampshire, Cape Ann, 

 a promontory at our feet ; Cape God, blurring the southern 

 horizon, Salem and Marblahead peeping out to the westward. 

 The surroundings of Gloucester arc unsurpassed for natural 

 scenery, and its summer climate dispels dyspepsia, and piles 

 up solid meat upon one's ribs. 



Our summer has been a most successful one, and quantities 

 of new and strange fish— starfish, shrimps, cephalopoda, 

 sheila, and invertebrates of all descriptions have been collected 

 for the National and other museums, aud of much more im- 

 portance, vast stores of valuable fuct3 have been discovered 

 and hunted out — all in the possession of old-time fishermen, 

 who, in the palmy days, possessed secrete, "tricks of trade," 

 through Which they succeeded when others failed, but which 

 died with such as died, and would have died with the others 

 but for the skidful pumping process, which the indefatigable 

 Goode and Bean have subjected them to with their copious 

 note-books, absorbing, as sponges do water, facts and figures, 

 which, collected, systematized and arranged, will i 

 epitome of the subject of cod and halibut fisheries. 



Another point, whose value can hardly be overestimated, 

 has been gained. We have enlisted in the research a great 

 corps of most valuable coadjutors. Gloucester sends hundreds 

 of schooners to the various banks to procure her staple com- 

 modity—fish. The crews of the vessels bring up daily on 

 their trawl hooks a great many articles which "are not what 

 they are hoping for, viz., cod or halibut, and overboard they 

 go, unites, perhaps, some endowed beauty, as with the corals, 

 or peculiarity, as with some of tho rocks, induces them to 

 save. Bteange fish, too, of no commercial value, but of the 

 greatest to those seeking to add to the stock of knowledge on 

 the subject, are caught daily. Now, these people bring in for 

 "the Professor " alt and every of their finds, and vie with 

 each other in the cause. Fish that but a short, time since were 

 unknown to science are now procured in quantities, thus 

 ichthyology is benefited greatly, wildcat the same time other 



as are served i geology gains by these 



tions, for among them are many frjetes from the bottom, to 

 itaoi i: have clung 6 ' '■■■' ei has been 

 diawn to the surface oy lie.: tia'.e! i ii iny of these 



racks show plainly by the fossil sh. in them that 



they are these which i formed the tertiary period, (arcs 

 shells which then existed, and which aic now extinct, are 

 plentifully found. Among these fossils there are found, too, 

 . v. ; [ will i 



into this branch of the subject. All the knowledge I have in 

 it is drawn from the writer of the annex,,! article, which has 

 appeared in the Cope Ann Advertiser, and which should 

 appear in all journals interested in the success of this ex- 

 pedition, as I presume the Fobjsst And Stream to be: 



" Among the donations to the United States Fish Commis- 

 sion during their stay in Gloucester have been numerous tree- 

 corals and sponges, obtained by their becoming entannled in 

 the fishermen's lines, by which they are brought up from the 

 sea-bottom. Those are generally attached to stones, which 

 often come up at the same time, and in many cases both have 

 been saved. Another way in which racks appear to have been 

 hauled up is by the hooks being caught in holes which are 

 bored in the rocks by a small shell, shaped somewhat like a 

 clam, and called by zoologists Saxicnea arelka. The rocks 

 which arc perforated in this way. as well as many others 

 brought from the banks which do not show these burrows, are 

 calcareous sandstone, formed of muddy sand and cemented 

 by lime so that they have become nearly as compact and hard 

 a3 the grinite of Cape Ann. These rocks of calcareous sand- 

 stone when broken open are usually seen to have a gray and 

 sandy edge perhaps a half-inch thick over the outside, while 

 the interior is much darker in color and much harder. The 

 latter is the natural condition of the rock, and the difference 

 at the outside is caused by the dissolving out of a lame part of 

 the dine by which it was cemented. 



"All these calcareous or sandy limestone rocks appear to 

 belong to ledges existing somewhere between the coast and 

 the banks, or they may be fragments derived from immense 

 areas of this rock forming a whole or a large part of the banks 

 themselves. They are certainly quite unlike any rocks which 

 occur on the mainland, as is known from their mineral charac- 

 ter and from numerous fossil shells which they contain, and 

 which have proved very interesting to the scientific men en- 

 gaged in the work of the Fish Commission. Portions of thir- 

 teen different boulders yielding these fossils have been pre- 

 sented to them from George's Bank, and these have been 

 iound to contain more than thirty different species of shells : 

 another rock from Banquereau gave eleven different species ; 

 and two other rocks, very similar to these, with fossil shells 

 embedded in them, have been presented from Grand Bank. 

 These fossils are inclosed in the solid rock, and are evidently 

 the remains of the animals which lived in the mud and were 

 imp i .Lied when this was changed into st" 



" The scientific importance of this subject will be explained 

 by a brief statement of iis bearing on geology. The greater 

 part of all the rocks which form the earth's surface are sedi- 

 ments brought by rivers and deposited in the sea, where they 

 often inclosed the marine animals of the period when this 

 took place. These deposits have turned into rock, and have 

 been upheaved to form the present comments with their 

 mountain ranges, so that sea-shells may be obtained from the 

 rocks in many places fur inland and a, mile or more a 

 level. The order in which these rocks lie, one above another, 

 and the kind of fossils which they contain, enable geologists 

 to determine the comparative age of the rocks-, that is, they 

 find in this way that the chalk in England is a more recent 

 deposit than the coal, and the fossils of our coal in Pennsyl- 

 vania show it to be of the same age with that of Oreat. Britain. 

 Since the coal and chalk were formed, other deposits, called 

 Tertiary, have been accumulated in the sea, aud in many 

 parts or the world they have been elevated and form land. 

 This is the case all along the COBBt of the Southern States, 

 when, in going from the mountains to the sea, the traveler 

 posses in succession over rocks of the coal, chalk and Tertiary 



• Eastern Massaohusette, New Hampshire and Maine, how- 

 ever, have hi raeksoi this period, all being older than the 

 age of the COB^ showing that this part of the continent has 

 not been submerged by tho sea so as to allow the accumula- 

 tion of deposits since that lime. It seems certain, however, 

 that deposits have been accumulating during all these ages 

 beneath the sea along Ohr coast. It is not. surprising, there- 

 fore, that these fossiliferous rocks, brought from the fishing 

 banks, appear to belong to the sumn age with the extensive 

 'Iertiary deposits which form the sea border of the Southern 

 States. In these Tertiary beds, and in the recks brought 

 from the fishing banks, the fossils are found "to be in part 

 forms which are still living in the sea, while probably half are 

 extinct. They are the rocks, next to the present time, and 

 Have a tnuchlarger proportion of species which are still living 

 than the chalk aud coal already mentioned, which contain 

 few, if any, forms identical with livi 



"Beeausoof the geological interest of these fossil-bearing 

 rocks, it is desired to call the attention of fishermen to this 

 matter, and to ask them to keep all the roeks which are got 

 during the coming year upon Georgia Bank and the other 

 Belling banks, marking them'so as to distinguish from which 

 portion of the batiks they come, and leave them at the 

 wharves or at tho office or store adjoining, or at the office of 

 the Fish Commission on Fort Wharf. Ii is disirable that 

 some memorandum of the place where they were found 

 should be left at the same time. One of the assistants upon 

 the Fish Commission work, who has collected many of these 

 boulders about the ciiy, and who supplies us this notice of 

 them, with other representatives or the Fish Commission, 

 will come here again next year and will be glad to see these 

 rocks which may be brought in." 



A study of this paper will indicate that there has been 



entific evidence gained by combination of the icsults 



descril e 1 wiih those described by the historian of the OfutU 



lltion t> justify a full belief that then 

 exist in some unfrequented portion of i he ocean, occasionally 

 appearing in less lonely spots, great marine creatures, which 

 • naturally be classed by ordinary observers as sea- 

 serpeats. 



On dry land we find as fossils tho creatures which lived in 

 the Tertiary period. On the banks many such fossilB, and 

 easts of others are also found -, and few living 



creatures corresponding closely with the type supposed to be 

 extinct. At a depth of 3,000 feet the c/m/i, ni/a- found un- 

 mistakably living starfish and opposed to 

 represent the Tnrtiury pel thorns other 

 forms of life of genua which lived and whose fossil remains 



are found in the strata ol till I -a step further 



1 ■'. past. 



At still gi eater depths, as yol unexplored by man, who shall 

 say that great eet'je •.• are familiar 



1 i 

 place by v, mrjs Of square miles of the 



igblel bat many 

 gnat and strong and long-lived creatures, swcpl off with the 

 fluxing waters, i kind ? .; 



If man's feeble exertions have, in i 

 about one square inch ..-loped 



l.v -.. fll -.' 



Still live, why i that in the boujuUesE untouched 



