1/6 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY I3TH ANNUAL REPORT 



gions, and limited areas in all the others. They vary in color from 

 white to dark gray or nearly black, usually without any trace of 

 red. yellow or brown. In many places shallow cuts or ditches 

 reveal a stratum of "hardpan" (sand cemented together by some 

 dark brown organic substance with perhaps a trace of iron) 

 within two or three feet of the surface, and borings made by soil 

 investigators seem to indicate that this is present in practically 

 all our flatwoods areas, unless clay or rock takes its place. The 

 hardpan is relatively impervious to water and not readily pen- 

 etrated by tree roots, but in some places it is said to be only a few 

 inches thick, with white sand below it, so that it can be perforated 

 by blasting or otherwise in preparing the land for agricultural 

 purposes. 



The damp sandy flatwoods soils are classed in the government 

 reports as "Portsmouth fine sand," "Leon fine sand," ''Norfolk 

 fine sand, flat phase," "Fellowship fine sandy loam," etc. In the 

 following tables they are represented by mechanical analyses 19 

 and 20 and chemical analysis Y. Salamanders are found only in 

 the driest spots, and other burrowing animals are scarce. 



The whitest of the damp sand has a vegetation nearly all ever- 

 green, something like that of the upland scrub, and this might be 

 called low scrub. Most of it, however, has a low pine land or flat- 

 woods vegetation, consisting mostly of pine and saw-palmetto. 

 Within a few miles of the larger rivers, particularly south of lati- 

 tude 29°, the pines may be absent over many square miles, making 

 palmetto prairies ; and sometimes the palmetto too is wanting or 

 nearly so, but that probably indicates a different kind of soil, either 

 wfet or marly, or both. 



A great deal of the damp sand is too wet for successful agri- 

 culture until artificially drained, but its level topography facilitate? 

 the control of irrigation water and fertilizers, and some very in- 

 tensive farming is carried on in places convenient to transportation 

 lines. 



Sandy and rocky soils. In the Gulf hammock region the sand 

 seems to be underlaid at no great depth by limestone, and the rock 

 crops out in many places, sometimes thickly enough to interfere 

 seriously with plowing. This type is designated in the soil surveys 

 as "Leon sand," "Leon fine sand," Portsmouth fine sand." "Gaines- 

 ville sandy loam, pine woods phase,"' "Hernando fine sandy loam,*' 



