FOREST AND STREAM. 



if^StVy^ 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Ppacticax. Natural History, 

 Fish Culture, the Protection oe Game, Preservation op Forests, 

 aitd the Inculcation in Men and Women of a healthy interest 

 W Out-door Recreation and Study : 



PUBLISHED BY 



17 CHATHAM STREET, (CITY HALL SQUARE) NEW YORK, 

 [Post Oeeice Box 2832.] 



__ — » 



Terms, Five Dollars a Year, Strictly In Advance. 



ANCIENT CANALS IN FLORIDA. 



A discount of twenty per cent, allowed for five copies and upwards. 



Advertising Bates. 



In regular advertising columns, nonpareil type, 12 lines to the inch, 25 

 cents per line. Advertisements on outside page, 40 cents per line. Reading 

 notices, 50 cents per line. Advertisements in double column 25 per cent, 

 extra. Where advertisements are inserted over 1 month, a discount of 

 10 per cent, will be made; over three months, 20 per cent; over six 

 months, 30 per cent. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1875. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, whether relating to business or literary 

 Correspondence, must be addressed to The Forest and Stream Pub- 

 lishing Company. Personal or private letters of course excepted. 



All communications intended for publication must be accompanied with 

 real name, as a guaranty of good faith. Names will not be published if 

 objection be made. No anonymous contributions will be. regarded. 



Articles relating to any topic within the scope of this paper are solicited. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secretaries of Clubs an£ Associations are urged to favor us with brief 

 notes of their movements and transactions, as it is the aim of this paper 

 to become a medium of useful and reliable information between gentle- 

 men sportsmen from one end of the country to the other ; and they will 

 find our columns a desirable medium for advertising announcements. 



The Publishers of Forest and Stream aim to merit and secure the 

 patronage and countenance of that portion of the community whose re- 

 fined intelligence enables them to properly appreciate and enjoy all that 

 is beautiful in Nature. It will pander to no depraved tastes, nor pervert 

 the legitimate sports of land and water to those base uses which always 

 tend to make them unpopular with the virtuous and good. No advertise- 

 ment or business notice of an immoral character will be received on any 

 terms ; and nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 

 may not be read with propriety m the home circle. 



We cannot be responsible for' the dereliction of the mail service, if 

 money remitted to us is lost. 



Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday of each week, if possible. 



CHARLES HALLOCK, Editor. 



WILLIAM C. HARRIS, Business Manager. 



CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR THE COM- 

 ING WEEK. 



Thursday, August 12.— Rockaway Yacht Club Raga tta— Trotting at 

 Rochester, N. Y., and at Barton, Ohio— Athletic vs. St. Louis, at St. 

 Louis. 



Friday, August 13.— Aquatic sports, Rockaway— Trotting at Roches- 

 ter, N. Y., and at Masillon and Delphos, Ohio. 



Saturday, August 14.— Beverly Yacht Club Regatta— Creedjnoor, 

 Turf Field and Farm Badge— Base ball, Athletics vs. St. Louis, at St. 

 Louis— Rockaway Yacht CI ah. 



Monday, August 16.— Athletic vs. St. Louis, at St. Louis. 



Tuesday, August 17.— Creedmoor, Eighth Regiment Rifle Club- 

 Trotting at TJtica, N. Y., Mendota, 111.,. and Orono, Me. 



Wednesday, August 18.— Long Island Yacht Club— Trotting at TJtica, 

 N. Y.. Delaware, Ohio, and Covington, Ky. 



Very Like a Whale!— -The news of the remarkable ac- 

 cident to the steamer Scy thia in the Irish Sea, in which her 

 propeller blade was broken by coming in contact with an 

 immense whale, was received with derision in Liverpool, 

 and attributed to the fertile invention of some Yankee 

 newspaper correspondent on board, or the result of contact 

 with, a rock when the ship was out of her course. But 

 when the yacht Killmany found the whale dead off Bally- 

 cotton, the scene of the collision, and with the assistance 

 of a tug towed the monster into Queenstown and alongside 

 the Scythia, the doubting Thomases were convinced. Sub- 

 sequently the whale was towed across the Channel and into 

 the Mersey and beached, where the citizens of Liverpool 

 could have an opportunity of examining the big fish that 

 undertook to measure strength with a Cunader. The whale 

 was fifty-six feet in length. 



__ _ •+*+• — 



To Buffalo Runners.— We have just been handling 

 one of Remington's army pistols, and cannot but regard 

 it as just the weapon to use on horseback in running 

 buffalo out West. It is not only light and effective, a 

 central-fire six-shooter, of heavy calibre (44) well sighted, 

 and all that, but it also has a swivel attached to the stock, 

 from which to sling it to the saddle or over the shoulder. 

 It is very cheap, too— costing only $15.50. Some 20,000 

 of them have been sold to a foreign government for 

 army use. ^ o ^ 



—Fish food does not create brains; it merely strengthens 

 them* 



OUR special correspondent, Dr. Chas. J. Ken worthy, 

 who explored Southwestern Florida last Winter, 

 and under the non de plume of "Al- Fresco," wrote a 

 dozen long letters of detailed narrative for this journal, 

 has repeatedly pressed upon the attention of our scientific 

 men, through these columns, the importance of thoroughly 

 examining the ancient canals and mounds that exist in that 

 part of the Flcridian Peninsula. Others of our contribu- 

 tors who have visited Florida, have urged the same work, 

 and even offered to aid it with money. We are not aware 

 that the proposition has been presented in any more direct 

 way to those most likely to be interested. At all events, 

 they have manifested no sign, and taken no steps toward 

 investigation. Possibly other fields of exploration too 

 fully engross their attention at present. What has been 

 printed in our journal, however, has had the effect to cre- 

 ate no small stir in Florida itself, and at a special meeting 

 of the Florida Branch of the International Chamber of Com- 

 merce, hel^ in Jacksonville last month, Dr. Ken worthy was 

 invited to furnish what information he possessed relative 

 to the canals and mounds in question. From the Secre- 

 tary's report, as printed in the local papers, we gather that 

 the loHig lines of unfinished canals were undoubtedly un- 

 dertaken to connect the waters of the interior, including 

 Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, with the Gulf of 

 Mexico, via the Caloosahatchee River and Charlotte Har- 

 bor for purposes of transportation, and also to reclaim the 

 overflowed lands adjacent by drawing off the water. Some 

 of these canals were on what are now islands in the har- 

 bor, having a direction in a line with the Caloosahatchee 

 above Fort Myers, and the ends of these canals had never 

 been open so as to admit water into them, but they are op- 

 posite and in a line with the best passage from the gulf to 

 the harbor. The canals at the head of the Caloosahatchee 

 had the same direction and extended some fourteen miles 

 or over in a line to connect the Lake Okeechobee with the 

 Caloosahatchee. Earth-works are also found in some of 

 the streams emptying into the lake, such as the Fish- 

 eating creek, on which Fort Centre stands. 



The excavation of one canal on Pine Island, in Char- 

 loote Harbor, is eight feet deep and forty feet wide, but 

 had not been completed at either end, so as to communi- 

 cate with the waters of the bay. At the southwest end of 

 the canal, six very large mounds exist, which the Doctor 

 is inclined to believe have been constructed since the ex- 

 cavation was made, and if a future and careful examina- 

 tion should establish this fact, it will lead to the conclu- 

 sion that a race existed on the peninsula antecedent to the 

 mound builders. These mounds may have been used for 

 sacrificial or religious purposes, or for sepulchre, as there 

 have been examined in other parts of Florida several 

 mounds, some of which proved to have been for burial and 

 others were connected with their religious rites and cere- 

 monies. Some excavating tools were found along the lines 

 of the works, made of conch shells, having a perforation 

 through which the thumb passed while the fingers grasped 

 the convex surface of the shell, when in use. The pres- 

 ence of these implements has suggested that the Indians 

 might have been the laborers upon the works, if not the 

 designers; but the engineering skill with which the works 

 are planned would indicate a higher grade of intellect. All 

 traces of iron or wooden implements would have long 

 since been destroyed by time, whatever might have been 

 their state of civilization. The age and size of the trees 

 growing in and on the banks of these excavations, nega- 

 tive the possibility of their having been made by the early 

 Spaniards. 



Dr. Kenworthy, in a private letter to the Forest and 

 Stream, urges that it is the duty of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution to follow up this matter. It is even now solicit- 

 ing by circular, specimens of aboriginal weapons, pottery, 

 skeletons, etc., to be exhibited at the Centennial, and if 

 an examination of the Ancient canals and mounds of the 

 Peninsula of Florida was made, might it not result in the 

 discovery of much that would interest the thousands from 

 afar? Compared with results, the cost of the expedition 

 would be trifling. The Doctor has reason to believe that 

 the Institution could secure the cooperation of the Navy 

 Department in carrying out the investigation, and that 

 Florida steamboat owners and railroad officials would only 

 be too happy to extend courtesy to such an expedition. 

 If a naturalist accompanied it many valuable specimens 

 might be collected, more especially of birds and fishes. In 

 Charlotte Harbor, near Pine Island, is the largest rookery 

 on the coast, and the waters swarm with an infinite variety 

 of fish. With regard to the canals, they might even be 

 finished by the Government or the State and utilized, 

 should an examination prove that the advantage to be 

 gained would justify the expense of the undertaking. 



Indeed we learn from the Jacksonville New South that 

 two competent surveyors have been engaged for several 

 months in performing the field-work in carrying out a con- 

 tract with the United States Government for the survey of 

 the lands in the neighborhood of Charlotte Harbor and the 

 vicinity. It states that they have just returned, and bring 

 the curious intelligence that the Everglades were dry, and 

 that Tiger Tail and others of the Seminoles are detained 

 on the eastern coast by the impossibility of making way 

 through the Everglades with their canoes. Such a fact as 

 this goes very far to prove the possibility of so reclaim- 

 ing these literally swamp and overflowed lands of the 

 Everglades— all of which, upon survey and selection, must 

 inure to the State — as to rescue from desolation and use- 

 lessness the best sugar region of the world, all things coa- 

 1 gidered 



The Jacksonville, Fla., Press, in noticing Dr. K's lecture 

 as above, says of this journal: — 



"We must pay a merited compliment to the publishers 

 of Forest and Stream (the leading sporting paper of 

 the United States, if not of the world) for the interest they 

 have always taken in our State, and for their efforts to send 

 us settlers, visitors and sportsmen. Its correspondents 

 have visited, carefully examined, and honestly and accu- 

 rately described the most unfrequented and inaccessible 

 portions of our State, and to them we are indebted for 

 much valuable information regarding what has heretofore 

 been considered a terra incognita." 



A PLEA FOR THE SEA SERPENT, 



_ * 



IN a brief paragraph last week we noticed the appearance 

 jf the sea serpent at two different times within the past 

 fortnight, once near Cuttyhunk, off the Massachusetts 

 coast, and again off Seguin, where it was seen by the pas- 

 sengers of the steamer City of Portland, plying betweeu 

 Portland and St. John, N. B. Since then we have found 

 in the Boston Advertiser a letter dated at Swampscott, July 

 31st, the writer of which is vouched for by that paper 

 stating that a serpent (possibly the same one,) was seen near 

 that place by a yachting party of six persons on that day. 

 We quote from the letter: — 



"Our party consisted of my reverend brother, Miss Mary 

 F., L., and myself, with two sailors. We were sailing in 

 my yacht about half way between Swampscott and Egg 

 Rock, the sea being quite rough, when we espied a school 

 of blackfish, or small whales, between Egg Rock and Little 

 Nahant. While we were watching their movements through 

 our glasses the head of an immense fish or sea monster sud- 

 denly emerged from among them, remained above water 

 for some seconds, and fell again, causing the water to boil 

 for some distance around it, and this performance it re- 

 peated at intervals of perhaps two minutes. 



We at once headed the yacht for the creature. When 

 first seen it was at a distance of about two miles from us 

 and heading toward us. I had on board a small breech 

 loading Ballard rifle, calibre 44, conical ball, and as soon as 

 we were within 300 yards I fired at it, but without effect. 

 We chased it about the bay for two hours, and during that 

 time I fired at it about twenty times at distances varying 

 from 100 to 300 yards. Once we distinctly heard the ball 

 strike it, but with no perceptible effect. Finally it started 

 out to sea, and when last seen it was heading in a south- 

 easterly direction, some four or five miles out. During all 

 this time it was accompanied by the blackfish, some fifteen 

 or twenty in number, one of which seemed to keep close 

 alongside of it. 



Its description, as nearly as I can give it to you, is as fol- 

 lows: The head reminded me of a lizard's head, long, flat 

 on top, from two to two and a half feet across, with eyes 

 large and prominent, set well back on the upper part, a 

 large mouth, which we could see open occasionally. This 

 head it raised about eight feet from the surface of the 

 water, bringing it up slowly, and keeping it up five or ten 

 seconds, when it would plunge back with a quick motion 

 like a dive, and showing a small portion of the back, where 

 we could see a pointed fin about one and a half or two feet 

 long, standing straight up, and in front we could see the 

 upper part of what looked like short legs, or the flippers 

 of a seal, but it never raised the extremities from the water. 

 Its color was a smooth, glossy black, except the under part 

 of the lower jaw, and as much of the breast as we could 

 see, which was white, with a distinct line of demarkation 

 between the two colors. I could see nothing that looked 

 like scales. We could, of course, tell nothing about the 

 length of his body, but there must have been an immense 

 power somewhere to enable it to raise such a head and 

 neck slowly such a distance above the surface, and to hold 

 it there for so long a time." 



Among the many stories told of late concerning this 

 strange creature the one mentioned by Mr. Frank Buck- 

 land deserves most attention , It was published in a late 

 number of Land and Water, and the writer says, speaking 

 from personal observation: — 



"The animal resembled a serpent, and its length was about ninety-six 

 feet. The body was thrown in a succession of undulations, or covers, 

 eight in number, in addition to the head and neck The motion of the 

 animal was caused by the undulation of these curves, and was extremely 

 xapid, ana in fact it made a hissing rush through the water, quite audible 

 from the vessel of the observer. The sea being quite still, and no wind 

 blowing, the party observing the animal were in a sail boat, and at one 

 time within one hundred yards, at which distance, by means of opera 

 glasses, it could be seen very distinctly; when nearest, the sea could be 

 plainly noticed running off its back, neck, and the back of its head, as 

 itdoesfroma low, flat rock which has been submerged by the waves. 

 The curves into which it threw itself were supposed to be for the pur- 

 pose of exposing as much of the body as possible to the air, as when it 

 moved rapidly it appeared to be perfectly straight." 



The writer calls attention to the close resemblance of this 

 animal in its general character to the sea serpents so fre- 

 quently reported as existing in the Norwegian fiords, and 

 states that the resemblance to a string of barrels, one after 

 another, hitherto noticed, was very striking. This com- 

 parison is the same as that given to the well-known Lynn 

 Bay snake, mentioned hereafter. The snake of Mr. Buck- 

 land's is indigenous to Loch Howen. Norway has always 

 been particularly identified with these curious tales, and if 

 we are to believe the Bishop Pontopiddan, and the draw- 

 ings of the creature published in his "Natural History," 

 (1752,) the matter needs no further discussion, as he gives 

 them full credence, and even describes their habits. 



In the year 1845 articles appeared in the Norway papers 

 describing a monster shake, and a full and minute account 

 is given, and the veracity of the statement is proved (?) by 

 the names all the prominent men, including scientists, who 

 viewed it, being appended. The monster was seen in the 

 vicinity of Christiansand, and also at Molde *and Lunde. 

 It entered the fiords on calm days, and was supposed to be 

 from seventy to one hundred feet long, of a black color, 

 smooth, and about two feet in circumference. It moved 

 through the water like an eel, and eame so near the shore 

 that the waves broke on the beach as if a steamer had 

 passed. On the neck hair was observed that waved like a 

 mane in the water, Archdeacon Deintoll s in hir report, 



