GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA l6l 



evated portions, as in most other parts of the world. As far as we 

 know at present the highest point in Florida is the summit of 

 Iron Mountain, about two miles north of Lake Wales, in Polk 

 County, which is said to be 324.3 feet above sea-level.* There 

 are some very similar high steep hills in the southern part of Lake 

 County, particularly between West Apopka and Clermont. f Cler- 

 mont is 105 feet above sea-level, and some, of the hills northeast 

 of there must be 150 if not 200 feet higher; and from at least one 

 of them one can look directly westward over three lakes at once. 

 Col. Charles Ledyard Norton, in his Handbook of Florida (3d 

 edition. 1891, pp. 45, 274), referring to Lake County, says: "In 

 point of fact, the highest elevations in the State, nearly five hundred 

 feet above tide-water, are found in this county;" but in the light of 

 present knowledge that appears to be considerably exaggerated. 



The high hills of the Hernando hammock belt have been noted 

 in the description of that region; and' there are points in the lime- 

 sink region and Middle Florida hammock belt nearly if not quite 

 200 feet above sea-level. The Hernando hills commonly have clay 

 near the surface, at least on their slopes (fig. 15), and Iron Moun- 

 tain and some of the hills near Ocala are a little rocky on top, but 

 those of Lake, County and many others have summits and slopes 

 alike covered with deep sand. Some of these sandy slopes are re- 

 markably steep, about 30°, but the outlines of the hills are smooth 

 and rounded, as if the wind slowly and imperceptibly filled up with 



*Early in 1915 the corporation owning this "mountain" and considerable 

 adjoining land advertised it to be 385 feet high, but this seems to have been 

 based on an erroneous assumption as to the altitude of points on the recently 

 completed branch of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which passed a little west 

 of the property. Revised figures seem to have been obtained from the railroad 

 a little later, and in the summer of the same year the corporation published a 

 small topographic map of the property, giving 324.3 feet as the altitude of the 

 summit, which seems reasonable. This was soon accepted by the U. S. GeoToi^- 

 ical Survey as the highest point in the State, and so published in the annual 

 New York World Almanac, beginning with the issue for 1917 (p. 67). About 

 the same time, however, it became known that Iron Mountain has a close rival 

 in a point near Round Lake in West Florida, 322 feet above sea-level. (See 

 our nth Annual Report, 1918, p. 81, and 12th, p. 53.) 



tSee E. A. Smith, Tenth Census U. S. 6:237. 1884; N. S. Shaler, Bull. Mus. 

 Comp. Zool. Harvard Coll. 16:151. 1890; Harper, Torreya 11:65. 1911; and fig. 

 19 of the present report. 



