Late in the life of the world, only about twenty million years ago, the great granite plateau of Florida sank beneath the sea, carrying with it all records of its worn-down mountains, old forests, rivers, and animals. So those who came to a later re-risen Florida found no gold nor even the bones of the hundreds of thousands of dinosaurs which had roamed that lost land. In the warm shallow sea which then covered Florida lived untold millions of small shell fish called Foraminifera, whose tiny skeletons fell in a gentle rain upon the gaunt frame of the submerged plateau, and built a foundation of pure white limestone four thousand feet thick. Ocean currents brought clay and sand down from the continent north of Florida, and delivered these to the forces building the Florida to be. Meanwhile the granite foundations stirred like a giant asleep. The peninsular rose and sank, and rocked from side to side, but so slowly that the limestone crust was not broken. but only gently domed, so that finally the island of Ocali rose from the shallow sea, looking much like a prehistoric white whale, 150 miles long and 60 miles wide.

Between this new-born land and the mainland flowed the Suwanee Strait. Slowly the mass of soft, soluble rock rose from the sea to a greater elevation than it is now, and the warm. heavy rains' of the old world scored it with channels and funnel-shaped cavities, and hollowed out great underground passages which later became reservoirs of rainwater, the source of Silver Springs, greatest of limestone springs. Meantime the island of Ocali sank like the hull of a wrecked vessel, to about its present elevation, and the great underground caverns which were to produce Silver Springs lay below the water table of the ocean.

But the marvelous purity of the sweet water was safe from contamination by the ocean salt, for the pressure of the great weight of its accumulated waters sealed the sides of the caverns, and the surface waters of the island, trickling through the sand and rocks from above, brought fresh strength daily to oppose the invading ocean. The rainfall over only one-fourth the area of Marion County is still great enough to keep the spring full. Over 460 million gallons of water per square mile are added every year to the underground area around Silver Springs. A new ally to resist the ocean's threat is added by the weight of the solids which the rain waters dissolve on their long slow journey. Six hundred tons of minerals are still carried off in solution every day in the waters of Silver Springs.

In the relentless passage of the homing waters through the thick crust of primeval limestone and in the lime they dissolve, lies also the secret of the marvelous brilliancy and transparency of the waters. Small wonder that this prisoned giant burst the walls of his underground dungeon. Through a great fissure 65 feet long and twelve feet high the water flows - swiftly, because of the pressure behind it. Many other springs in the basin add to the volume of the water.

At its maximum flow, 801 million gallons of water a day come from the springs, enough to supply New York City. The bowl of the Spring is 400 feet in diameter and in places a depth of eighty feet has been reached, in the deepest fissures.

Having built a mighty spring, secret forces within the earth now set the stage for a second act in the long drama of its history. The time was almost modern, geologically speaking about one million years ago. The old continent north of the island of Occrli became convulsed by inward agonies, mountains were pushed up in new places, old highlands sank in others. In this reassembling of lands, submerged Florida rose, carrying with it a fragment of ocean bed which joined it to South America, thus presenting the reborn land in the role of a mighty continental causeway.

The climate was warm and equable, much as it is now, and the abundant waters nourished rich grasses which covered the rolling prairies of Florida. So the water-gods of the great springs beckoned and the animals of the world responded, probably never in the history of the world has such a variety and multitude of animals gathered as roamed Florida. Across the causeway from South America came armadillos, sloths, peccaries, tapirs, Ilamas, to graze and trample the rim of the great water hole, Silver Springs. From the far north, across another continental causeway at Bering Strait, the gigantic mastodons led an army of Asiatic immigrants down to the Florida plains -- the rhinoceros, bison, horse, lion, great dire-wolf, and the most feared of all, the sabre-toothed tiger.

When we consider how few and small are the wild animals of Florida today we may wonder what became of all that vast concourse of wild life. The answer lies partly in the small, light bones of yet another animal, the bones of prehistoric man, who staked out his claim to Florida and disputed with the mastodon and the sabre-toothed tiger his right to rule the water hole. Memorials of those struggles are to be seen in the huge bones of mammoth and mastodon which have been taken from the spring. Absorbed in their efforts to survive, neither man nor animals were conscious of the great changes which were again taking pierce around them. The world grew colder; the waters around Florida receded, collected in great ice-caps at the other ends of the world. The epicontinental seers were drained; gaps were washed in the continental causeways, and connection with South America was broken, like a frayed cable. The ice crept down over North America, never reaching Florida but changing it from on animal causeway to a cul-de-sac, where man and beast were trapped by their destiny. But though it was cold, life was still comparatively easy for these first Florida men, because they had at hand the plentiful animal food, fruits unfailing, and fresh waters they needed. And so they throve, but remained hunters, for thousands of years after men in less favored parts of the world were advancing toward civilization by means of agricultural toil.

Though animals might not swim the strait of Bering Sea, man could still paddle canoes across the narrow waterway and so in comparatively recent years (five thousand more or less), ancestors of the American Indian began to come to their new home, by the back door. Following with unfailing instinct the old animal trails which traced the high ground, red men entered Florida by Trail Ridge and settled in great numbers in North Central Florida, in the vicinity of Silver Springs. Among the early Indians this region was known as Timuqua, Kingdom of the Sun, while the area around Silver Springs was a subprovince of Timuqua, called Ocali. The reason sun and water worship became so prominent in the religion of the southern Indians was that they had reached an agricultural stage of civilizcrtion, and on the course of sun and showers depended the success of their crops.

In 1528 Indian runners reached Ocali with the news that four hundred white gods, clad in shining armor, had landed on the west coast and were marching inland. To the Indians these strangers bore terrifying proofs of godliness. Pamfilio de Narvaez, the leader, was a veritable giant of a man, with red hair, the color symbolic of the Sun-god. Fifty of his men appeared to have four legs and two heads, since they were mounted on horses, hitherto unknown in this region. These horsemen used savage dogs to help them capture Indian guides. The Floridians were brave but "Efa." the dog, was another symbol of the water gods, and they were overwhelmed with superstitious fears.

Hirrihigua, Chief of Tampa, had dared to defy Narvaez and for this his nose had been cut off and his aged mother torn to pieces by the dogs. Other captives, hoping to rid their villages of this scourge told Narvaez that northeast lay the rich province of Ocali. And so he marched inland, through swamps and forests which even three hundred years later baffled American armies in their fights with the Seminole Indians. Finally he entered the western part of the Ocali province and stopped to build rafts to cross the Withlacoochee river. Here 200 Indians opposed his passage in vain-arrows found some cracks in the wonderful Spanish armor but Indians fell by scores, while many more were captured and chained to the terrible line of burden bearers who staggered along under the lash of the commissariat. When at last the Spaniards spread over the Ocali cornfields like hungry locusts, Dulchanchellin, chief of the area, resorted to a strategy. With a great show of pomp he went to meet Narvaez, borne in a litter on the backs of bearers. Three hundred worrriors followed him but an orchestra of flutes, drums, and pipes went ahead, playing to show he came in peace.

According to native custom, Dulchanchellin exchanged presents with Narvaez and then told him of Apalache, bounded on the south by the Guasaca-Esqi, River of Reeds -- the Suwanee, that river which the Indians told Fontameda twenty years later flowed over beds of gold and lapislazuli. Eagerly the cruel and greedy Spaniards followed Dulchanchellin out of Ocali Iands, like credulous children behind the Piper of Hamelin. Then, like the Piper, Dulchanchellin vanished, leaving them to a terrible fate at the hands of the wilderness and Indians of the north.

Ocali was saved--but not for long. Eleven years later, on May 30, 1539, an even more gorgeous and awesome company of white gods landed near Tampa, whose wide bay so often betrayed the portals of the Indian Iand. Hernando DeSoto with six hundred foot soldiers and two hundred and thirteen cavalry was heading inland. This was the most splendid expedition which came to America, and it was marching for Ocali.

Nothing could save the water gods this time, for the Spaniards had heard of the wealth of Ocali. After listening to the reports of Indians near Tampa Bay, DeSoto wrote to Cuba his reasons for going to see this fabulous land. He said in this, his only known letter, that the Indians told him northwest lay the country of their enemies, where there was a "town called Ocali. It is so Iarge and they so extol it, that I dare not repeat what is stated. They say that there is to be found in it a great plenty of all the things mentioned, and fowls, turkeys in yards and tame deer tended in herds. How this can be, I do not understand, unless they mean the cattle, of which we heard before coming here. They say there are many traders and much barter, and that there is an abundance of gold and silver and many pearls. God grant this may be so.

Juan Ortiz, a young Spaniard who had been sent with an expedition to search for Narvaez, and hard been captured by Hirrihigua, was found living under the protection of another chief, and became DeSoto's interpreter. Ortiz said he had not been into the interior but had heard of the wealth and power of Occtli. The Gentlemen of Elvas, author of one DeSoto account, having talked to survivors of the expedition, said they reported that the wcrrriors wore helmets of gold, while Biedma, a member of the expedition, wrote that the Tampans said that the Ocalis were so mighty that at their shout, birds on the wing fell to the ground. Flattering as this picture was, it sealed the fate of Ocarli, in spite of the most desperate efforts of its people to conceal the way there. With only ten horsemen the impetuous leader pushed ahead to find the road. Four indian guides led him astray and for this they were torn to pieces by the Spaniards' dogs.

This were a most terrible fate because the Indians believed that if their bones were destroyed they woulb not live again in the Happy Hunting Ground of spirits. So the fifth guide succumbed to superstitious fears and led DeSoto through swamps to the high rolling country of Acuera, just south of Ocali. Here he found the roads so "broad he thought he already had his hand on the spoil." He herd told Moscoso, his camp master, to stay behind until he should find some good reason for advancing. How he dispatched two young men on fast horses to bring up the anmy. How broad this Ocali road was may be surmised from the fact that DeSoto was looking for cities such as he herd seen in Peru, where he had served as Pizzaro's second-in-command.

The Spaniards secured a guide who showed them the way across the swamp and river of Gale, the Withlacoochee. With on advance guard of twenty horsemen DeSoto forded the Withlacoochee, southern boundary of the province of Ocali. Here he found great stores of corn, and sent mule loads back to the army. Repeated defeats had discouraged the Indians so when DeSoto entered Ocali he found it deserted. The place was described as a town of 600 houses, a very large number for an Indian town. The great storehouses contained dried vegetables, fruits and nuts. Like an early Florida villages it was probably surrounded by a spiral stockade whose entrance was protected by a swift stream. About a mile and a half below Silver Springs on Silver River remains of a very large Indian population were found in 1856. Here may have been the Ocali seized by DeSoto.

Naturally the Spaniards were disappointed when they found no gold. Headquarters were established in a great palmetto thatched house where DeSoto received four young warriors who ventured into town. By them he sent presents to chief Ocali, who finally after six days, came out of hiding. Gladly the chief agreed to help the Spaniards build a bridge across Santa Fe river to reach their next obiective, Apalache, in the present Tallahassee region.

While DeSoto and Ocali stood talking beside the river five hundred warriors rose from ambush on the opposite banks and shouted "You want a bridge, do you? Merciless robbers, you will never see it built by our hands!" One of DeSoto's great dogs, excited by the noise, broke from his keeper and plunged into the stream. The Indians killed him with their arrows and the Spaniards mourned his loss as if he had been human.

DeSoto asked Ocali why his people were angry, despite his kindness to the chief. The embarrassed native explained that they had cast off their allegiance to him since he had become a friend of the Spaniards. So DeSoto allowed him to return to his people, to try to pacify them. Without Indian help a Genoese engineer named Francis showed the soldiers how to build their bridge, and DeSoto crossed with a hundred foot soldiers and fifty horsemen, pushing ahead of his army. Capturing thirty natives for guides, he departed leaving the remainder of the army at Ocali, much disgruntled because they had caught no Indians to act as servants.

Not knowing that green corn is best eaten boiled on the ear, they laboriously cut it off, pounded it and sifted it through their shirts of mail so as to make flour for bread. Here they first ate "little dogs that do not bark." the opossum. Word finally came from DeSoto at another town, Caliquen, that he needed the whole force of his army to advance further. The messengers said Indians reported that beyond Apalache lay nothing but water, but DeSoto had ceased believing them now. The army believed, however, and thought they would return to Ocali, for the winter at least, as previously planned. And so before they left Ocali, they lightened their loads by burying all their iron tools and many other things they thought they would not need at once.

The march of DeSoto upset tribal relations throughout the length of his route across the present southern states. Broken remnants of tribes defeated by him drifted into Florida and one of these seized the fertile island of Lake Weir (twelve miles from the modern town of Ocala). They gained prestige as warriors among the Floridians by capturing the daughter of the great chief at Cape Canaveral as she was being escorted across the peninsula to become the bride of the wealthy chief Carlos, ruler of south west Florida.

In 1564 a new threat to Ocali loomed from the northeast. By this time Ocali had been absorbed into a confederation under chief Potano who shared his name with his kingdom. Potano was the enemy of Utina, a chief living beside the St. Johns river, near the present Palatka. When a French colony settled at the mouth of the St. Johns in 1564, Utina persuaded some of the soldiers to join him in an attack on Potano. Two hundred warriors with a handful of French in the front ranks marched toward Potano's villages. But when the French guns spouted fire, smoke and thunder and their chief fell dead, the men of Potano were routed. The village of Ocali was probably one of those devastated by the triumphant victors.

One of these French soldiers was an artist called Le Moyne, who drew pictures of the battles and of these Indians. He also made a map locating the Indian towns along the St. Johns and its tributaries. On this Ocali was spelled Eloquale.

Middle Florida knew the French for but a short time. In September, 1565, the whole company were massacred by Menendez, sent out by Philip II of Spain to put an end to French claims to Florida.

Spanish influence spread slowly but surely over middle Florida. In 1576, Pedro de Andrada with a company of soldiers was sent from St. Augustine to aid Utina against Potano and other chiefs. By 1583 all the chiefs in this region had acknowledged Spain's control.

In 1609 Utina with his heir and chiefs was baptized in St. Augustine. Though the Potanos were among the most war-like of the Timuquan tribes, a little later, about 1655, there rose in this district the great mission center of San Francisco de Potano near the present town of Alachua, with substations in other villages, visited regularly by priests.

Spain found the missionaries knew how to employ the energies of the Indians. Under their wise administration the men learned to raise cattle, hogs, cmd horses, so that not only St. Augustine but even Cuba was supplied with Florida meat. Orange groves of sweet, sour, and bittersweet varieties spread around the mission centers, where figs, plums, and grapes were also raised.

This Eden became too rich and tempting, bordered as it was by wild tribes and predatory Charlerton traders. In 1685 an English expedition raided San Francisco de Potano, carrying off church ornaments and slaves to Charleston. From 1697 on there wars a rapid decrease in Timuqua's inhabitants. First the Carolinians sent their Indian allies into Florida the Yemassees of the coast and the Creeks of the back country of what is now Georgia. These did so well that Englishmen joined the raiders and between 1700 and 1706 nearly all of the inhabitants of Timuqua were carried off into slavery.

But in the meantime the Yemassees quarreled with their English friends, and sought alliance with the Spanish Governor at St. Augustine. He received them gladly and allowed them to settle in the almost deserted Timuquan towns, most of the newcomers centering around the Oklawaha, Silver Springs, and the old provinces of Utina and Potano. These Indians were much darker them the Timuquans and less advanced in agriculture. But they absorbed Spanish doctrine and Timuquan tradition with equal facility, so that the old shrines of the water gods and the mission churches received their new converts.

It may have been these Yemassees who contributed to the multitude of Florida beliefs the idea of tree burial, characteristic of their tribe. As hers been said, in all parts of America, trees, waters, winds, and the cross were objects of worship. The tree symbolized the source of life and so was sacred to the gods of waters. It was this idea which had caused the early Indians to line ceremonial avenues to their shrines with trees. These Yemassees carried the symbolism further and placed their dead in hollows of trees, as the receptacle most fitting to preserve them for rebirth.

Later the Creeks in this same region followed the custom, and specially buried very young children in hollow trees, carefully ceiled over, for fear a drought would follow. If a drought should actually take pierce, the people sprinkled water all around the tree tomb in the hope of breaking the evil spell. Even as late as 1822, a traveler in the vicinity of Silver Springs saw the bones of an Indian in a hollow tree. Another belief, thought to have originated with the Yemassees, was the faith in sabia crystals, a dangerous charm supposed to be found in an early spring flower growing beside water. Before gathering it, the warrior bathed four times that his family might receive its good and not its evil effects.

The Spanish missionaries were not so successful in taming these newcomers. They chafed under discipline and the English came often to wreak vengeance on their former allies, so that the fugitives had to move constantly, the priests following as best they could. Weeds grew high and the fruit-laden orchards were untended. English maps showed a line across middle Florida in the region of Ocali as the boundary claimed for Carolina, and traced thereon the route of the slave hunters. Here "Dest. Sulisa" (deserted old fields) appeared, where Ocali's rich farms had flourished for so many centuries.

The inevitable finally happened -- England acquired Florida in 1763. Some Spanish Indians went with their old masters to Cuba, or stayed on the coast of South Florida, where they traded with the Cubans. The Creeks of West Georgia, who had remained faithful to England, now came to Florida and received greatest consideration. Some Creeks herd already penetrated as far as Apalachee by 1705, coming in with English traders and remaining there in possession of the ruined towns of the former inhabitants. These were the Lower Creeks or Mikasukees, who became known as Seminoles about 1775.

The Upper Creeks, called Muskogees, differing in language and blood from the Mikasukees, began to come from Georgia to Florida about 1750. Secoffie, their chief, took up his residence in old Potano, renamed by his people Alachua, about 1775. Thus he was but a little north of Silver Springs, Governor Grant, first English executive in Florida, called Secoffie and the other chiefs to Picolata on the St. Johns. and made a treaty with them, which provided that they should be undisturbed in the possession of the Iands west of the St. Johns river. That country -- the old regions of Utina and Potano -- then became known as the Indian side of the river.

During the twenty years of English rule, the Upper Creeks, or Muskogees, grew very wealthy and their cattle and hogs increased to great herds on the Alachua plains. They enslaved the Yemassees whose villages centered about the Oklawaha and Silver Springs. The legend of Winonah and Chulcotah might well belong to this period. According to this story Chulcotah was the chief of a tribe at Silver Springs, probably Yemassees, whose enemy was Okehumpkee. The Iatter is the name of a spring 120 miles south of Gainesville, which could have been named for a Muskogee chief.

Winonah, Okehumpkee's beautiful daughter, loved Chulcotah, but her father killed him in battle, whereupon Winonah drowned herself in Silver Springs. The long grasses, glistening and swaying in the current, suggest her lovely tresses. The idea of lovers united in the waters of the spring is quite in keeping with the Indian conception, as the pierce where sun and moon, fire and water, god and goddess be united. Henceforth, in the opinion of the Indians, Winonah would be a hand-maiden of the water gods, since those whose fate it was to be drowned, struck by lightning, or to die of dropsy were thought to be their special attendants.

William Bartram, the Philadelphia botanist, wrote of middle Florida as he saw it in 1773. His book was a best seller and captured the imagination of the English poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge. As a result carefree Seminoles appeared in Wordsworth's "Ruth," while Alph, the sacred river of Coleridge's Kubla Khan Bowed through undergrounp caverns, such as Bartram described as the source of Florida's great springs.

Backwash of the American Revolution soon altered the Florida that Bartram admired so much. The British made their last stand here and called on their Allies, the Georgia Creeks and the Florida Seminoles, to help. Secoffie, chief of the Seminoles, and several Georgia chiefs received silver crowns for their raids against the frontier settlements of Georgia and South Carolina. Thus a black score against Creeks and the Seminoles was kept by the Americans and weighed heavily against them when the British withdrew in 1784.

Andrew Jackson defeated the Creeks in the battle of Horse shoe Bend. By the terms of surrender the Creeks promised to return runaway slaves hiding among the Seminoles. Accordingly Creek guides led Tennessee raiders into middle Florida, despite the fact that it was Spanish territory. Secoffie's successor, Ring Payne, for whom Payne's Prairie near Gcrinesville is named, was killed, battling the raiders. Among Payne's followers was an Indian woman from Georgia and her eight-year-old son, later to become the famous Seminole leader, Osceola. These two retreated to South Florida and lived on Peace River until Osceola reached manhood.

News that the U. S. had purchased Florida from Spain spread dismay among the Seminoles. They expected the worst of Andrew Jackson, their old enemy, who was made first governor. Jackson confirmed their fears by recommending that they be sent west along with the Creeks. To this they objected because as a tribe they held quarreled bitterly with the Creeks over the latter's agreement to help the Americans reclaim runaway slaves hiding among them. Moreover their beliefs led them to consider the earth as their mother. To desert their homes would be a sacrilege against her.

Failing to get support for his policies, Jackson resigned his Florida offices and on Sept. 18, 1823, the treaty of Camp Moultrie was engineered by James Gadsden, acknowledging the Seminoles as a nation separate from the Creeks and allowing them to remain in Florida, provided they moved to South Florida. The Indians protested against moving as far as Tampa, and Mr. W. P. Duval, their agent and friend, allowed them to remain in the Ocala region, where Fort King, an Indian agency, was located in 1825, three miles from Silver Springs.

This location was no accident -- it was near a spot where Indians gathered. Seminole towns of the area at that time included Ahapopka, at the head of the Oklawaha; Yelacasoche, at its mouth (where Utina herd lived); Oclawaha, somewhere on the river; Buckerwoman's town, near Long Swamp; Mulatto Girl's town, south of Cascawlla Lake. On the first American survey of the region, made during the year 1824, Silver Spring is charted and called Glassell's Springs. On Blake's map of 1839, the towns of Coa Hajo and Charley Emathia were also within a few miles of Fort King, while the area fairly bristled with other forts and block-houses.

One dire result for the Indians was the use of Glassell's or Silver Springs as a provision depot. Up the Oklawaha and Silver Rivers came the boats with supplies for the interior posts, which were unloaded on the brink of the spring. So the sacred spot was defiled and the Indians no longer sought it, though they made no mention of their loss. Such things were not talked of. When asked to describe their chief ceremonial dance, the Green Corn Busk, one intelligent chief said, "It is not fitting to speak of these things."

In exchange for the privilege of remaining in Florida the Seminoles agreed to surrender slaves who had run away from their owners. But white men were allowed to go into the Indian territory seeking their slaves, and some dishonest men claimed slaves, cattle, and horses that had never been theirs. This brought on fights and reprisals, and conditions became intolerable for Indians and Americans alike. Fort King was garrisoned with soldiers by 1827.

After Andrew Jackson became president his original policy of moving the Seminoles had gained popular support. James Gadsden was sent to make another treaty with the Indians, this time insisting on their joining the Creek Indians on their Oklahoma reservation. On May 9, 1832 he met the chiefs at Payne's Landing, a little northwest of Silver Springs. The Indians protested, especially against living with the Creeks, but Gadsden said if they did not go even their annuity of $15,400 would be withdrawn. Finally the Indians gave in because they were discouraged. A terrible drought had ruined their crops and they believed the welter Gods were angry with them. They agreed to consider the terms, provided a delegation of their leaders could go west and see the new land and report. One who opposed this treaty was the young Osceola, just recently come from South Florida. He often visited Fort King to act as a guide and had alreardy gained fame as an athlete. However his word carried no weight in the indian council because he had only two followers and no property.

John Phagan was the Indian agent who went west with the delegation. He were a dishonest man, soon to be dismissed for cheating his charges. While still in the West he tricked the delegation into signing what was called the Treaty of Payne's Landing, agreeing to emigration on their return. Foke Luste Hajo (Black Dirt), principal war chief of the Seminoles was deposed for exceeding his authority, and the Seminoles became united in opposition to the duplicity with which they hard been treated.

As determination to resist removal to the west grew, the eloquence and leadership of the sub-chief Osceola began to impress the indians. He was in favor with the white people at Fort King, because of his intelligence, agreeable manners, and apparent willingness to promote good relations between the two races. He herd often brought in offenders from among the Mikasukees, the most troublesome of the tribes.

As pressure on the Indians increased, Osceola became more active in the conferences. One of the American officers at Fort King recorded his impressions of Osceola at this time. "I recollect once to have seen him on the piazza of the officers' guarters, whilst Micanopy, the ostensible chief of the nation, wets closeted with General Clinch, in his office, which opened upon the stoop. Micanopy was a fat, lubberly kind of a man and is ever a stupid fool when not replenished by his sense bearer (as he calls him) Abraham, who was on the present occasion absent. Osceola well knew this, and therefore it was that he betrayed the anxiety he did, to be near Micanopy, to give him the proper cue for non-commitment. He would stand at the door, apparently in the attitude of an eavesdropper; then he would be peeping into this and then into that window; ever assuming that peculiar air of curiosity discernible only in the Indian.

"Becoming more and more impatient of his exclusion from the conference, he suddenly stalked across the stoop, jerked out his knife, and flourished it mound his head with the most savage vehemence. Never have I seen a more striking figure than he presented. Of a fine, rigid frame, his costume, as appropriate as it was striking, gave grace and dignity to his attitudes. On his head was a turban, garnished by two long drooping feathers, his hair of glossy blackness fell in thick profusion around a face of most beautiful variety of expression when unruffled; but now exhibiting a mixture of hate and unconquerable resolution. Couple these characteristics with his sturdy stride, the significant shake of his head and his uplifted hand, clenching and flourishing with savage ferocity his knife, and you may form some conception of him."

The terms of the treaty of Payne's Landing had required that the Seminoles be ready to emigrate within three years, Osceola bargained as long as possible with the whites for arms, ammunition, and supplies. He was determined to resist emigration as long as possible, perhaps altogether.

Finally Thompson refused to sell the Indians any more ammunition and in February, 1835, General Clinch was authorized by the Government to force them to leave. Fort King was manned with six hundred regular army troops.

On April 22, 1835, the Indian Agent, Wiley Thompson, called a conference and made another effort to persuade the Indians to leave peaceably. On the second day of the conference Micanopy absented himself and the other chiefs admitted that he would not agree to Thompson's terms. Thompson retaliated angrily by declaring Micanopy was no longer the head chief. This only made matters worse and Osceola ended the stormy session by driving his knife into the treaty saying that was the only signature he would give to it. (A statue in the park overlooking the Springs depicts this dramatic moment.) Andrew Jackson afterwards reproved Thompson for interfering with tribal government.

Osceola's conduct astonished Thompson, a kindly man of limited understanding. Only recently the agent had presented the young chief with a costly rifle, which he thought would secure the Indian's friendship. At the same time however he had not protested when a white man claimed Osceola's wife Che-cho-ter (Morning Dew) as a slave because she had some negro blood. When refused help in recovering her, Osceola's language became so abusive that Colonel Fanning arrested him, at Thompson's request. As he was dragged struggling to the guard house, he cried in the Creek tongue, "The sun is high. I will remember the hour. The agent has his day, I will have mine." Because of his great strength his hands were tied so tightly that the scars could be seen two years later.

Convinced that he must use guile to escape, Osceola pretended to repent and asked Charley Emathla, a chief friendly to the whites, to intercede for him. He was released when he promised to use his influence in favor of emigration. Instead of doing this Osceola met other chiefs hostile to the move, and all agreed death should be the penalty for any indian who sold his stock or otherwise prepared to leave. At this news 450 Indians who herd agreed to emigrate fled to Fort Brooke for protection. Charley Emathla defied Osceola and openly sold his possessions. As he was returning with his money from the sale, he was ambushed and killed by Osceola's band. White people were shocked by Osceola's ingratitude but failed to appreciate the Indian's point of view. He scorned to touch Charley's money and scattered it to the four winds. But regardless of personal friendship he believed in making Charley suffer the consequences of following white instead of Indian leadership.

Soon after this, troops at Fort King were ordered to one of General Clinch's plantations, Lang Syne, afterwards Fort Drane, a few miles northwest of Silver Springs. Because there were only forty-six defenders left at Fort King, all the men were ordered to remain inside the pickets. But on Dec. 28, the sutler of Fort King, Erastus Rogers, and two clerks, Mr. Hisler and a boy Robert, went to dinner at the sutler's house, a few yards outside the pickets, and bordered on the northwest by a thick hammock. They were still there about two or three in the afternoon, and, unknown to Captain Lendrum, General Thompson and Lieut. Constantine Smith were also outside, walking after dinner, about 300 yards away, near the same thick hammock.

Suddenly the peculiar, shrill war whoop of Osceola was heard. Osceola and sixty Mikasukees rose from the bushes and fired at the two white men. Thompson died with fourteen bullets and a knife wound (probably Osceola's) In his body. Smith was also killed and both men scalped. The Indians then killed the men in the sutler's house. Their negro cook, hidden behind a barrel, saw Osceola enter the room first. Rogers was killed outside. Osceola overthrew the table, to be sure no one was underneath it, looked around with a stern expression, and left.

On the same day that these events took place at Fort King, the Dade Massacre was executed a short distance to the south. Because of his anger against Thompson, Osceola chose to lead the worriors at Fort King and so could not take part in the larger engagement against Dade. But both bands of Indians met that night in the great Wahoo Swamp to celebrate their victories according to their ancient custom. The scalps of the victims were exhibited, the scenes were re-enacted with savage triumph and the worriors received their full reward of praise, which was all they ever desired.

Just after the outbreak, Osceola wrote a letter of defiance to General Clinch, "You have guns." he said, "So have we -- you have powder and lead and so have we -- your men will fight, and so will ours, till the last drop of Seminole blood has moistened the dust of his hunting ground." It is hard to convey an idea of Indian eloquence and imagery through the words of the interpreters who often listened for hours and then translated in a few words.

Caocoochee, another noted chief of the Seminoles, voiced his love for the land of the water gods they were fighting for by telling of a dream which had given him courage to do what no other man had succeeded in before, escaping from the grim prison of Fort Marion. His "twin sister who had died appeared to him, holding in her hand a cup of pure water which she said came from the spring of the Great Spirit and if I should drink of it, I should return and live with her forever."

The war dragged on; generals came with acclaim and departed amid a shower of investigations, and finally General Jesup was appointed to command the Florida troops. He met with little better success than his predecessor, General R. K. Call.

Indians from other sections of the United States were recruited to fight the Seminoles. On Oct. 19, 1836, there were 690 Creek warriors from Georgia and 90 white soldiers at Fort Drane. Other tribes, too, now joined the fight--shawnee, Delaware, Choctaw, 900 in all. Besides the pay of a soldier, the inducement offered by General Jesup (appointed to command Dec. 8, 1836) was a share of the loot captured, slaves, cattle, and horses. Dogs were used to hunt fugitives, also recalling the exploits of DeSoto. The Seminoles had the same word for dog that the Timucuans did, though the American spelling renders it "Efaw" instead of "Efa," as the Spanish held it.

In September old King Philip and thirty-five of his people were captured, and his son, Caocoochee, came to St. Augustine to see what terms could be made for emigration. Caocoochee was held at the Fort, from which he sent messages to Osceola to come to a point seven or eight miles from St. Augustine to make terms with Jesup.

Previous to this, on March 6, 1837, General Jesup had succeeded in making a treaty with the Seminoles, in which he promised that free negroes and slaves of the Seminoles might go west with them. On these conditions Micanopy, prompted by his negro, Abraham, agreed to emigrate and brought 250 of his people in to Fort Brooke at Tampa, Osceola would not agree, but folded his arms and walked away. "If only half that has been said of this indomitable warrior be true, he is a most remarkable man." said the Pensacola Gazette. Osceola's premonitions of bad faith were correct, for Jesup violated his promises by allowing white men to enter the Indian camp at Tampa and seize negroes. Thereupon Micanopy. lumper, and other chiefs were rescued by Osceola and the war was resumed.

Jesup had been severely criticized for failing to end the war, and he decided to resort to desperate measures. On Oct. 20, 1837, Osceola and a party of warriors were at the place designated in Caocoochee's message, within seven miles of St. Augustine, and sent the Indian emblem of peace with word that they would like the General to come without escort to confer with them. Since Philip and Caocoochee were in confinement, Jesup said he feared the Indians might seize any officer who met them and demand an exchange of prisoners. He sent General Hernandez, but while Hernandez talked with them, Colonel Ashby's company was instructed to surround and seize them.

Hernandez was also carefully drilled as to what he must say, and as the chiefs stood with guns cocked and eyes alert, he began to talk of irrelevant matters, merely to pass the time until Ashby should have surrounded them. Their seizure was clearly not ethical, even by white standards, but Jesup was surprised at the storm of reproach which followed the capture and said, logically enough, "If it was lawful to remove them, it was lawful to seize them."

Osceola was imprisoned at St. Augustine along with Cacoochee, Philip, and many other chiefs. At this juncture the Cherokees, pitying the conditions of the Seminoles, offered to try to persuade them to surrender. A delegation was brought to Fort Marion to talk the idea over with the prisoners. It was a dangerous mission because the Indian decree of death on those suggesting emigration had continued to be carried out. Osceola's sister would not even speak to her white husband because he was on the other side. The Seminole chiefs welcomed the idea of Cherokee mediation, and even Osceola said he was tired of fighting, but was too ill to say more. The Cherokees met the Seminole chiefs at Chickasaw Creek. sixty miles from Fort Mellon (now Sanford), Micanopy, Cloud, eleven chiefs and twenty warriors came with them to Fort Mellon under a flag of truce, and were promptly imprisoned. The Cherokees were incensed at this treachery and insisted on telling the prisoners they too had been deceived, while their chief, John Boss, wrote a protest to the Secretary of War.

But the Seminole spirit was not broken. Caocoochee escaped from Fort Marion and inflamed the Seminoles again at the news of this fresh abuse. The imprisoned chiefs were removed to Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor for greater security and finally sent west. Osceola was too ill to go, having developed a bad case of quinsy. His two wives and two children were allowed to stay with him, and great attention was paid him, Catlin, the famous painter of Indians, hastened to the fort and painted his picture just five days before he died, Jan. 30, 1838.

Those who agreed to emigrate were scarcely less wretched than those who continued to fight. The band of Holata Emathla, 407 in number, had fled to Tampa early in the conflict and on April 11, 1835, started their westward journey. Three times during the forlorn pilgrimage the American officers in charge of their emigration were changed and the last one, Lieutenant Jefferson Van Home, was desperately anxious to end the iourney. He found 78 of the Indians ill with measles and the teams waiting In camp "at heavy expense."

Moreover, he noted with exasperation. "The proximity to the river enabled them to bathe the sick constantly in cold water which was sending them rapidly to the grave." Out of this party, eighty-seven, including Holata Emathla himself, died during the two months journey west. They had lost all their property -- slaves and cattle having been stolen by those Indians who did not favor emigration, or by dishonest whites. Out of the total of 11,702 Seminoles sent west. 4000 died in the course of detention and removal.

The balance on the white side of the ledger for the war was almost as appealling. Forty million dollars was spent by the government, and from 1500 to 3000 soldiers lost their lives, not to mention the number who were injured. Fort King ceased to be a military post in 1843 but remained a trading post and was the county seat in 1844. The town of Ocala was named in 1846. But it was 1856 before the Indian removal could be pronounced and accomplished fact, and even then several bands of Indians still remained in the Everglades. Among these was Chief Sam Jones, formerly of the Silver Springs area, who still refused to surrender, though he was over 100 years old and had but 38 warriors left. In the fastnesses of the Everglades their descendants live still. Until recently they would not learn the language or ways of whites and their only contact with civilization was for purposes of trade. Finally a teacher was sent by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for the children of the Brighten Indian Reservation. In 1940, men, women and children were attending school.

But the cherished spots of the Indians--their sacred springs and rivers, burying grounds and fields--were shorn of their devotees, and their centuries of tradition forgotten. An alien race overran the land, to whom the shrines were objects of wonder only--curiosities without significance.

Man could do little today to improve upon the natural beauties of this ancient Indian shrine, but much has been done by art to create a background worthy of the Great Silver Spring--a setting for the crystal, as it were--and to place at the convenience of the modern visitor, who has followed the Indian trail, all the facilities that would make his visit more memorable and pleasant; so that he may enjoy fully the many attractions which, in the early years, lured the Indians to Silver Springs, and inspired them to make of it their water shrine.

All of this has been done in a manner which in no way detracts from the natural charm of the spot. The entrance drives have been landscaped, and native trees, shrubs and flowers have been planted along their sides. In fact that whole section which lies between the spring and the Dixie Highway has been made over into a huge garden where lawns slope down to the water and brilliant tropical flowers bloom throughout the year.

Across the water, and in contrast to the landscaped section is a tract that hers been left untouched. Here all the wild flowers, ferns, jungle creepers, and tangled growth of a Florida forest flourish just as they did hundreds of years ago.

At the head of the Great Spring is the pavilion, where trips on glass bottom boats may be had. From the shores of the spring, the transparency and depth of the water cannot be fully realized.

Only through the glass bottom of one of these peculiarly constructed boats can one realize its crystal clearness. Once afloat, peering down at the bottom, one gets the effect of riding high aloft on some magic carpet, sliding along smoothly and silently over a vast valley. Far below, as though viewed through thin air--so transparent is the water--many varieties of fish swim Iazily, or dart up to gaze momentarily with round, unblinking eyes at the strange creatures who have come to stare down at them.

The soft pastel colors seen in the depths are caused by the reflection of rays of light which easily penetrate the clear water to the bottom where bits of limestone and shell act as natural prisms and break the white light into all of the colors of the rainbow. The sparkling decorations on the underwater vegetation are bits of lime which, lifted by the boil of the water, have lodged in the submarine branches, making the trees resemble the jewelbearing plants found by Aladdin in the magic grotto. The underwater rainbows are not at all affected by changes in the weather; even on dark days, when the sky is overcast, the prismatic effect is still as strong as when the full sun is shining.

Caverns, grottos, and huge chambers, which have been carved out of the solid limestone by the soft hands of the flowing water, float past under the eye--all peopled with gars, sunfish, perch, black bass, lack, mudfish, shell-crackers, and turtles. The water is fresh, sweet and pure; the 4,000 foot blanket of limestone that covers the central part of Florida acts as a natural filter for the rain, which seeps down from the surface, collects deep in the earth, and finally boils up again from the mouth of the spring.

Tame fish come close and, when bread is offered, like puppies almost stand on their tails, begging to be fed by hand. At times the white sand disappears, to be replaced by underwater meadows of ribbon grasses that sway in the rapid current, or by or submarine garden of decorated Christmas trees. At the end of the trip it is strange to raise one's eyes and find that one is on level ground, after having been floating, as it seemed, high in the air over some tropical iungle.

A new type of boat, adapted for taking moving pictures, is the photosub, a boat with a well in the forward section, glass windows in the well permit the photographer to follow the movements of swimmers, and to portray, with fidelity, the great variety of underwater life in Silver Springs.

One of the most complete collections of strictly Florida reptiles in the state is that of the Silver Springs Florida Reptile Institute, E. Ross Alien, Director, Mr. Alien's collection numbers some 2,000 snakes, alligators, crocodiles, and turtles. Alien, a kind of Frank Buck of the Floridawoods and glades, captures many of his specimens himself.

As a dealer in snakes, wild animals and reptiles, he has found this comparatively non--competitive field most profitable. One of his chief sources of income is the venom extracted from the fangs of diamond--back rattlesnakes and cotton--mouth moccasins, which he sells to biological houses to be used in the manufacture of anti--venom and in the treatment of hemophelia and experimental cure of diseases.

Visitors come yearly from the entire United States, Europe and the far east, a never ending pilgrimage to the Great Silver Spring; foreign ambassadors, the great and near great of every nation in the world have come to see the beauty of the shrine. Officers of the United States Army Engineering Corps, in Florida to study conditions for the proposed Cross--State Canal, visited the spot, and, after a long and complete study of the spring and surrounding territory, announced that the water comes from a limited vicinity near the spring itself, and that the cutting of a canal would have no effect at all on the steady flow or the pureness of the fresh water.