988 
FOREST AND STREAM. 


PALMETTO SHACK—HOME OF THE MODERN DWELLER ON 
of nearly six feet in depth. Its value to the 
dwellers along the shores when it is completed 
can hardly be estimated, as the boats which will 
ply along its course will afford a ready water 
communication with all points. Tourists who 
would enjoy to the full the climate of Florida, 
either in winter or summer, may make the sailing 
yacht or launch their home for a week or for 
months, when, far from thte madding crowd if 
they wish, and in its very midst at any time 
in a very few hours if they so desire, the tired 
worker, or the equally tired devotee of pleasure, 
may find rest and recreation at little or much 
cost, as they may elect. 
We pitch our new camp not far from where 
the dredge is working, and in the distance can 
see the smoke of its companion coming towards 
it. When they have dredged the few intervening 
miles, the work will be completed. 
Our camp is under the spreading oak, while 
for many miles away stretch the open wood, 
where the cabbage palmetto vies with the oak 
in height, and the vine of the wild grape shows 
its vigor in climbing to the sunlight in the oak’s 
top. 
The path is carpeted with leaves and our tread 
is silent. Each morning the members of the 
party divide as fancy and taste dictate for the 
day’s work, called diversion. 
When we are ready to start for home, we 
leave, after an early breakfast for our return 
trip of nearly forty miles, for we.seek favoring 
wind and tide, and have several stops on the 
way. We stop at Washington’s for a look over 
a shell heap, and at Du Pont’s to get some 
Indian relics that must have been brought from 
North Carolina, because in Florida there is none 
of the material of which they are made, and at 
Summer Haven to return a borrowed skiff. We 
stop for a few hours’ fishing for sea bass at 
Matanzas inlet on our way, with a reward of 
one catch of a twenty-pounder. 
There was told some years ago in FOREST AND 
STREAM the story of the tragedy at the Divide, 
when a woman was shot and. killed, and a man 
shot three times in the neck and shoulder, then 
pounded on the head with a bunch of oyster 
shells, and then, with his throat cut, thrown in 
the water to drown, yet lived to tell the tale as 
the receding tide left him out of the water. All 
this had been related on the voyage by one of 
the party, who had looked up all the facts in the 
case, and so we stopped to look over the scene, 
and to speculate as to what kind of a constitution 
THE MOUND. 
a man must have acquired in Florida to recover 
from such an assault and to live for many years 
after. 
By this time the sun is going down apace, and 
the breeze is falling too, and so the remainder 
of the voyage is rather slow. Indeed, before the 
lights of the town appear, ‘an “ash breeze” had to 
be inyoked. Indeed, he would be accounted a 
careless skipper who should start on a voyage 
without a good, stout pole, whose incantations 
never fail to raise an “ash breeze,’ and so save 
many a party from an all night’s anchorage miles 
away from home. 
Finally, tired and happy, we arrive at the wharf 
of St. Augustine, our voyage ended. 
De Witt Wess. 







[JUNE 23, 1906. 

A Relic of Prehistoric Times. 
When the white men first penetrated the in- 
terior of this continent, they found at various 
points great earthworks which they believed to be 
relics of a former civilization that had dis- 
appeared. It was long a popular belief that here 
was a civilization that equalled that of ancient 
Egypt, that people which had attained a degree 
of culture far higher than that of the Indians 
who lived in this region, and had left behind them 
these monuments, which only the work of long 
time could destroy and efface. All this is now 
believed not to be true. The investigations of 
Putnam, Thomas, Brinton and a host of other 
ethnologists point to the conclusion that the 
mounds and other earthworks that have so stimu- 
lated the public imagination were built by In- 
dians, people not unlike those whom we have 
known in the historic period, and the evidence 
points strongly toward the ancestors of tribes 
still existing. Although great numbers of these 
earthworks have been destroyed by the opera- 
tions of civilization, some of the large ones still 
remain. 
One of the largest of these mounds is situated 
at Miamisburg, O., and was originally some 
eighty feet high, but the digging of exploring 
parties has reduced it to sixty-seven. The base 
measures some 8oo feet in circumference. Years 
ago a shaft was sunk into the top, but the work- 
men were frightened from their work by a pecu- 
liar hollow sound which came up from below. It 
was feared that the interior of the mound con- 
tained a hollow chamber like the one at Grave 
Creek, and might possibly cave in. In 1869 a 
second party dug down to the base, where they 
found a solitary skeleton in a sitting posture fac- 
ing the east. The bones were allowed to remain 
undisturbed and the shaft was filled up. 
At the time of its discovery the mound was 
found to be covered with forest trees. Most of 
these were cleared away and an orchard planted, 
but of late years the forest is once more reclaim- 
ing it. This mound has always been an object of 
interest for visitors, and Representative J. C. 
Myers made strenuous efforts to induce the State 
to purchase the famous relic, but without success, 
and it still remains a neglected relic of a van- 
ished race. CLARENCE A, VANDEVEER. 
“My dog took first prize at the cat show.” 
“How was that?” “He took the cat.”’—Judge. 






















































































FLORIDA INDIANS CARRYING THEIR CROPS TO THE STOREHOUSES, 
From a drawing by the French artist Le Moyne in 1563. 
