6oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



exploring it pretty thoroughly. He is said to have had a more exten- 

 sive knowledge of it than any other man living. As a result of his 

 activity a good deal of information about this interesting place was 

 spread before the public, in newspapers and otherwise. The best ac- 

 cessible description of Okefinokee Swamp, in ISTesbitt's " Georgia, her 

 Eesources and Possibilities," published by the Georgia agricultural 

 department in 1896, is based on his observations. Most of the above 

 history of the operations of the Suwanee Canal Company is taken from 

 this book, and is given in considerable detail here because the book 

 seems to be quite rare. An abridged description can be found in Stev- 

 ens & Wright's " Georgia, Historical and Industrial," a similar but 

 much larger book published by the same department in 1901, and in 

 Bulletin No. 5 of the Geological Survey of Georgia, by S. "W. McCallie. 

 After the death in 1895 of Capt. Jackson, its president and most 

 active member, the canal company suspended operations. The ten or 

 twelve miles of canal and five or six miles of drainage ditch began to 

 fill up with vegetation, the steamboats and dredges mostly sunk or were 

 burned, the sawmill fell to decay, and the rails of the logging road were 

 taken up. The property then passed into the hands of some northern 

 lumbermen, who it is said are still planning to exploit the economic 

 resources of the swamp, though there was no visible evidence of their 

 work at the time of the writer's visit a few years later. 



To return to the progress of exploration of the Okefinokee ; Dr. Fili- 

 bert Eoth, at that time connected with the Division of Forestry of the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, seems to have made a brief visit to 

 the swamp in the spring of 1897. Incidental references to the two 

 commonest trees of the swamp, cypress and slash pine, were published 

 by him soon afterwards in Bulletin 13 (revised) and Circular 19 of 

 the Division of Forestry. 



In August, 1902, the writer, in the course of botanical explorations 

 in south Georgia, spent two days in the swamp, and considerably more 

 time in the surrounding country. In the swamp he was accompanied 

 by Mr. P. L. Eicker, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and a 

 native guide. We traversed the whole length of the old canal in a 

 small boat, and made a side trip on foot through the bogs to an island 

 about two miles off the canal. Together we took about forty photo- 

 graphs, including all those used to illustrate this article. Brief notes 

 on this expedition have been published in several scientific journals, 

 but nothing like a complete description of the vegetation of the swamp 

 has yet been attempted. 



During the winter and spring of 1905-6 a party from the Bureau 

 of Soils of the U. S. Department of Agriculture examined the soils 

 around Waycross, and in their report, published in April, 1907, is a 

 pretty fair description of the northern end of Okefinokee Swamp. 



