.l6o FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY I3TH ANNUAL REPORT 



In recent years several test wells have been put down in the hope 

 of striking oil — one in Sumter County reached a depth of 3,080 

 feet before it was abandoned — but without success as yet.* 



TOPOGRAPHY 



The subject of topography is not very well adapted to syste- 

 matic or statistical! treatment, especially in a region where so little 

 is known of the processes that produced the configuration of the 

 surface as is the case here. In most civilized countries the greater 

 part of the topography is evidently the result of either glaciation or 

 normal erosion or easily understood variations thereof, and persons 

 skilled in such matters can trace the developmental cycles with con- 

 siderable satisfaction ; but surface erosion is probably an insignifi- 

 cant factor in our area, on account of the low altitude of some parts 

 and the very sandy soil or subterranean drainage of other parts, 

 and the origin of some of our topographic features is still an un- 

 solved problem. The treatment adopted here, therefore, is neces- 

 sarily somewhat empirical. 



Uplands. Although the topography of central Florida seems to 

 have been shaped mostly by other means than surface erosion, as 

 just stated, the steepest average slopes are generally in the most el- 



*It is a curious coincidence, perhaps not easily explained, however, that 

 all or nearly all the successful oil wells in the United States are in regions 

 where there is more rain in early summer (April to June) than in late summer 

 (August to October), and where the native vegetation is either predominantly 

 deciduous or treeless ; a combination of conditions not found in Florida — thcu,i':h 

 approached in the extreme northwest of the State — or anywhere near the c'>a^t 

 northeast of here. 



According to an article by John K. Barnes in the "World's Work" for 

 April, 1920, the cost of drilling for oil in the United States in recent years 

 has greatly exceeded the value of the oil produced. So apparently we would 

 be better off financially if no oil wells had ever been drilled! 



tAt first thought it might seem impossible to apply any sort of statistics 

 to topography. But in areas covered by reasonably accurate topographic maps 

 one could at least estimate the average slope of the surface of a given region 

 by drawing straight lines across the map in various directions, counting the 

 number of contours crossed in a unit distance, averaging the results, and apply- 

 ing a factor of about three-fourths to make a correction for the fact that mosi 

 of the contours will not be intersected at right angles. It would also be pos- 

 sible to estimate the areas lying between sea-level and 50 feet, 50 and 100 feet. 

 etc. 



