I have been to see the quarries of coquina, or shell-rock, on the island of St. Anastasia, which lies between St. Augustine and the main ocean.  We landed on the island, and after a walk of some distance on a sandy road through the thick shrubs, we arrived at some huts built of a frame-work of poles thatched with the radiated leaves of the dwarf palmetto, which had a very picturesque appearance.  Here we found a circular hollow in the earth, the place of an old excavation, now shaded with red-cedars, and the palmetto-royal bristling with long pointed leaves, which bent over and embowered it, and at the bottom was a spring within a square curb of stone, where we refreshed ourselves with a draught of cold water.  The quarries were at a little distance from this.  The rock lies in the ridges, a little below the surface, forming a stratum of no great depth.  The blocks are cut out with crowbars thrust into the rock.  It is of a delicate cream color, and is composed of mere shells and fragments of shells, apparently cemented by the fresh water percolating through them and depositing calcareous matter brought from the shells above.  Whenever there is any mixture of sand with the shells, rock is not formed.

Of this material the old fort of St. Mark and the greater part of the city are built.  It is said to become harder when exposed to the air and the rain, but to disintegrate when frequently moistened with sea-water.  Large blocks were lying on the shore ready to be conveyed to the fort, which is undergoing repairs.  It is some consolation to know that this fine old work will undergo as little change in the original plan as is consistent with the modern improvements in fortification.  Lieutenant Benham, who has the charge of the repairs, has strong antiquarian tastes, and will preserve as much as possible of its original aspect.  It must lose its battlements, however, its fine mural crown.  Battlements are now obsolete, except when they are of no use, as on the roofs of churches and Gothic cottages.

In another part of the same island, which we visited afterward, is a dwelling-house situated amid orange-groves.  Closely planted rows of the sour orange, the native tree of the country, intersect and shelter orchards of the sweet orange, the lemon, and the lime.  The trees were all young, having been planted since the great frost of 1835, and many of them still show the ravages of the gale of last October, which stripped them of their leaves.

“Come this way,” said a friend who accompanied me.  He forced a passage through a tall hedge of the sour orange, and we found ourselves in a little fragrant inclosure, in the midst of which was a tomb, formed of the artificial stone of which I have heretofore spoken.  It was the resting-place of the former proprietor, who sleeps in this little circle of perpetual verdure.  It bore no inscription.  Not far from this spot, I was shown the root of an ancient palm-tree, the species that produces the date, which formerly towered over the island, and served as a sea-mark to vessels approaching the shore.  Some of the accounts of St. Augustine speak of dates as among its fruits; but I believe that only the male tree of the date-palm has been introduced into the country.