1895.] Anthropology. 1033 
It is cut large and well for a distance of considerably over half a mile, 
and is an undertaking so extensive that it would have been looked 
‘upon as unreasonable to have credited the Mound-Builders with it, 
were it not that there exist similar and longer canals formed, I believe 
indisputedly, by these prehistoric people from their mounds to some 
of the larger watercourses in the neighborhood of the Everglades. 
The preservative properties of peat at home, and the family likeness 
of this peat muck to the British article in its moister and more boggy 
condition, made me very loth to forego an effort to find out the secrets 
that I felt sure must be hidden at the bottom of the canal, and of its 
adjacent peat basins. It was, however, far too extensive and difficult a 
work to attempt under the circumstances, although various means of 
doing so had been canvassed with the other guests of the hotel. 
Archæological instinct having been aroused, an amateur exploring 
expedition was accomplished to a curious cement-capped mound in the 
neighborhood, of which more anon. 
Mr. Charles Wilkins, of Rochester, N. Y., left me still at work at 
this mound on the second morning, and went on to Marco in the hopes 
of coming across tarpon there. Two days later he returned to Naples, 
having made a find in a muck basin at Marco that excited our interest 
greatly. The results of this find it will, perhaps, be out of place for 
me to describe in detail here; suffice it to say that the articles con- 
sisted of wooden cups, a carved head of an animal, conch cups and 
conch clubs, with remains of their handles, and other most inter- 
esting articles of wood, pottery and bone. He had been led into this 
search, I believe, by a casual find of some kindred objects by one of 
Mr. Collier’s people when getting “muck” for fertilizing purposes. 
One of the wooden articles had remains of fire still on it, and the black 
rubbed off upon the fingers as if it had been charred yesterday, 
although it must have been done before 2 feet 6 inches of deposit had 
formed over it, and a tree, a foot across, had grown and died above the 
old fire-site. 
I at once made preparations for going to Marco to try and add 
further to this treasure-trove, and a few days afterwards my wife and 
myself were off with a boatman for the long row south, within the reef, 
through bay and canal with a strong tide which turns for or against at | 
the most odd places and times, seemingly without reason, until one 
learns the ways of this strange reason, and that all depends upon which 
of the passes intersecting the outer reef, the particular canal or bayou is 
ebbing or flowing through. A small bayou between two passes will 
have the ebb tide running out of both its north and south channels at 
