GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 1 69 



wide. They nearly all originate in and are bordered by swamps, 

 and are decidedly coffee-colored. 



The outlets of the large springs, varying in size from creeks to 

 small rivers, are commonly called runs. They are clear and bluish 

 like the springs, but usually do not flow more than a few miles be- 

 fore they lose themselves in some larger coffee-colored stream or in 

 the ocean. Helena Run, in Lake County, is said to be transparent 

 when it flows eastward from Bugg Spring into Lake Harris, and 

 coffee-colored when it flows westward from the lake toward the 

 Withlacoochee River.* 



The larger rivers are all coffee-colored in their natural state, 

 there being no naturally muddy water in peninsular Florida ; but a 

 few^ like the Alafia and parts of the Withlacoochee are kept turbid 

 most of the time by washings from the phosphate mines in their vi- 

 cinity. The rivers are as a rule sluggish, because the highlands of 

 the peninsula are so narrow that streams originating in them get 

 down into the flatwoods before becoming large enough to be called 

 rivers. 



There are, however, a few places where ledges of rock form 

 rapids, particularly in the Gulf hammock region within a few mile? 

 of the coast. One such place on the Withlacoochee, about ten miles 

 from its mouth, and the same distance below Dunnellon, has been 

 made the site of a hydro-electric plant (fig. 6), with a 20- foot 

 dam, furnishing power to Dunnellon, Brooksville, several phosphate 

 mines, and even an orange packing house in Sumter County. There 

 is another such plant on the Hillsborough River a few miles from 

 its mouth (in what is regarded as a part of the lime-sink region), 

 which however is said to be used only for emergencies, as it cannot 

 furnish enough power for the whole city of Tampa. There is said 

 to be a spring near Sumterville which furnishes power for a mill.f 



*See 3rd Ann. Rep., p. 281. 



t According to U. S. Geol. Surv. Water Supply Paper 319, p. 406. There has 

 been some talk of damming up other springs in central Florida for power pur- 

 poses, but just why a spring should be selected for that purpose, rather than 

 the same stream farther down where it is larger, is not clear, unless it is mcrol}- 

 a manifestation of a mania some people have for destroying or defacing oi'ject? 

 of natural beauty. Some attempts of this kind in West Florida are said to have 

 had the unexpected result of merely forcing the water to find a new outlet 

 through the cavernous limestone. 



