174 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY I3TH ANNUAL REPORT 



chocolate-colored, it commonly has phosphate pebbles scattered 

 through it, or underlying it at no great depth, and it is probable 

 that the same sort of soil at the other localities contains more phos- 

 phorus than the common creamy sand, though those in the lake re- 

 gion are remote from any known phosphate deposits, and the reason 

 for the difference in color there is not obvious. 



The vegetation on the darkest phase near the Peace River is 

 usually of the semi-calcareous hammock type, while elsewhere it is 

 mostly high pine land, but differing from typical high pine land in 

 having more turkey oak than black-jack — or sometimes very few 

 oaks of any kind — and more Spanish moss on the pines than usual 

 (especially around Dade City). This being evidently a better soil 

 than those previously described, a good, deal of it is cultivated. 



In a few places in the lake region, for example in southern Polk 

 County, the prevailing sand has a rusty yellowish color, presumably 

 due to iron, but is similar to the creamy sand in depth, texture, and 

 vegetation. A more remarkable type, occurring on high uplands 

 a few miles south of Lakeland, is ashy gray in color, with consider- 

 able silt or rather very fine material in it. This is close to the pebble 

 phosphate country but high above it, and its derivation and compo- 

 sition are unknown. The gray matter does not appear to be of the 

 nature of humus.* The vegetation is mostly of the high pine land 

 type, with turkey oaks exceptionally large and numerous. A large 

 part of this soil has been cleared and planted to orange groves. 



Semi-calcareous hammock land. This is a makeshift term used 

 by the writer to cover a variety of upland soil that is mostly sand, 

 but has enough limestone within a fe\V feet of the surface or out- 

 cropping to influence the vegetation perceptibly. It is an inter- 

 mediate condition between the creamy sand already described and 

 the calcareous uplands described on the next page. It is comn^on in 

 the vicinity of Ocala, and has been mapped as "Fellowship sand," 

 "Fellowship sandy loam," Gainesville loamy sand," "Gainesville 

 sandy loam," and Portsmouth sandy loam;" and it is represented 

 in the following tables by mechanical analyses 10-14, 17, 18, 21-24, 

 48-51, and chemical analyses B, G, N and S. 



*This soil in color resembles some near the center of Alachua County, 

 mentioned incidentally in the Sixth Annual Report, p. 370; and in texture it 

 reminds one of the loess of southwestern Mississippi, which is supposed to have 

 been transported by the wind. 



