SOME FLORIDA LAKES AND LAKE BASINS. 1 29 



The surface soil in the basin is quite generally a gray sand 

 darkened by admixture of organic matter. In the lower parts of the 

 lake, quite generally covered by water, more or less muck or peat 

 occurs formed from the accumulation of aquatic vegetation. Sand 

 lighter in color and lacking the organic matter occurs at a depth of 

 I 1-2 or 2 feet to 3 or 4 feet. Beneath this sand is the usual red 

 sandy clay. 



This lake as already mentioned became dry, or nearly so, in 

 the early spring of 1907. It was partly filled by the summer rains 

 of the same year, but became dry or nearly so again during the 

 summer of 1909. The accompanying photograph of this lake was 

 taken July 5, 1909 and shows an unusually low water stage of the 

 lake for that season of the year. (Fig. 32). 



LAKE LAFAYETTE. 



Lafayette Basin or Lake Lafayette lies in the eastern part of 

 Leon County between Tallahassee and Chaires. The basin begins 

 three and one-half miles east of Tallahassee, and extends to within 

 one mile of Chaires, having a total length of about five and one-half 

 miles, and a width of one-half to one mile. An arm of the lake 

 extends north from near the east end of the lake. The bottom of 

 the basin is nearly level with the exception of occasional slight de- 

 pressions. The tributaries to the lake are flat-bottomed streams 

 Vv'ith relatively broad valleys and no well defined channel. The soil 

 in these stream valleys is a sandy loam, and the streams are or- 

 dinarily dry, carrying water only during the rainy season. 



A drainage sink in this basin occurs near the west end of the 

 kike along the northern border (See Fig. 29). The sink when 

 measured in September, 1909, was found to have a total depth of 

 75 feet. The sink is found, as is usual in this type of lake basin, 

 near a prominent bluff. A second sink is formed beyond the lake 

 border, thus indicating the enlargement of the lake basin in that 

 direction by subsidence, due to underground solution. This new 

 sink is one hundred yards or more in circumference, and when 

 formed carried down to the lake level, land which stood fifty feet or 

 more above the lake and was being used previous to the subsidence 

 as a cemetery. 



That part of the lake basin which surrounds the sink lies at a 

 slightly lower level than the more remote parts of the basin and is 

 the first to be submerged at the approach of the rainy season. 

 This area is entirely devoid of trees, and during the dry season 

 becomes a prairie. The greater part of the basin lying to the south 

 I '1 the railroad is thickly set with small cypress trees. 



