2gO FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT. 



that have been observed elsewhere in the South hold true here the 

 soil should be rather high in potassium, if nothing else. (A chem- 

 ical analysis will be inserted near the end of this report if it is ob- 

 tained in time.) Within a stone's throw of where the photograph 

 and samples were taken a part of the same forest had been dead- 

 ened a few months before (some of the trees were not quite dead 

 at the time) and planted in cotton, which in October was about 

 five feet tall, and was expected to produce about a bale to the acre. 

 Similar soils which have been cultivated for a generation or more 

 without fertilizer are still producing about half a bale of cotton to 

 the acre, it is said. 



All soils in the region are not like this, however. Long-leaf 

 pine is the prevailing tree in many places, and there the soil is 

 paler and doubtless poorer, though it may be richer than the av- 

 erage long-leaf pine land. And some of the hardwood forests 

 contain a considerable proportion of evergreens, presumably indi- 

 cating a dearth of potassium ; but no examination has yet been 

 made of these poorer soils. Salamanders are common in the pine 

 land. 



Topography and Hydrography — The topography is every- 

 where gently undulating, never flat, unless some flatwoods areas 

 which have been seen in this region are really parts of it and not 

 outliers of the Apalachicola flatwoods on the west. Where the 

 flatwoods occur (for example six miles east of Crawfordville on 

 the road to St. Marks) they seem to be a little higher than the 

 surrounding country. There are a few lime-sinks, sloughs and 

 small ponds, but hardly any surface streams except the Wakulla 

 River. This river has its source in Wakulla Spring, the greatest 

 natural wonder in the region. As far as dimensions are con- 

 cerned it is the largest spring in Florida, and perhaps the largest 

 in the world, being about 400 feet in diameter and over 80 feet 

 deep. In volume of water, however, it may be exceeded by the 

 noted Silver Spring, in Marion County. Its water, like that of 

 other limestone springs, is transparent with a slight bluish tinge. 

 One or two creeks which rise northwest of this region sink into 

 the ground near its edge, and one of these may be the main source 

 of supply for Wakulla Spring.* 



*Although these creeks have coffee-colored water, as is usual with coastal 

 plain streams, such water in passing through limestone for any considerable 

 distance has its vegetable matter precipitated and comes out clear, except when 

 the volume of water is too great for the precipitation to be completed in the 



