9- APALACHICOLA FLATWOODS. 247 



winter resort business also. The large sawmills in and near the 

 coast strip get their timber almost entirely from farther inland. In 

 the first half of the 19th century the government reserved a strip 

 on the coa^t of West Florida for the sake of the live oak timber, 

 which was then highly valued for ship-building. Roads and wheeled 

 vehicles are scarce in this region, and communication is mostly by 

 boat and rail. 



9. APALACHICOLA FLATWOODS. 

 (figures 62, 63) 



References. Bush, Harper i (221, 235-238, 294-295), Harper 5, Matson 

 & Sanford (305-306), Sellards 3 (293 or 47, — first use of name), Smith 2 

 (226), and U. S. soil survey of Leon Co., 1906. Illustrated in 3d Ann. Rep., 

 pi. 19.2, fig. 17 (two views of estuarine swamps), and in Pop. Sci. Monthly 85: 

 353- 1914- 



This kind of country is confined to Florida, between the Choc- 

 tawhatchee and Wakulla Rivers, and has an area of about 2,600 

 square miles. 



Geology and Soils — No rocks or fossils are known in this re- 

 gion, except on the banks of the Sopchoppy River, and the area is 

 usually nearly all mapped as Pleistocene. The soil is mostly sand, 

 of several different degrees of fineness. In some places there is 

 "hardpan"* within two or three feet of the surface, but 

 over the greater part of the area there are no cuts or 

 excavations deep enough to indicate what underlies the sand. In 

 a few places in Wakulla and Franklin Counties the vegetation seems 

 to indicate marl near the surface; and there is said to be a belt of 

 fairly rich soil on the west side of the Sopchoppy River. Along the 

 Apalachicola River there is of course considerable alluvium, which 

 near the mouth of the river seems to be at least 170 feet deep.f 



One of the most characteristic soils of this region has been 

 called "Leon sand" in the soil survey above cited. It is described as 

 a gray or white medium sand 6 to 10 inches deep, usually moist and 

 often compact, underlaid by a pure white or light brown compact 

 medium sand, which is saturated with water or nearly so. The veg- 

 etation is said to be mostly long-leaf pine, saw-palmetto, and wire- 

 grass ; and very little of the land is under cultivation. The follow- 

 ing mechanical analysis of such a soil from somewhere in the south- 



*See Third Ann. Rep. 96-97, 222, 225, 294, 295; 4th Ann. Rep. 37-38; 

 5th Ann. Rep. 127-128. 



tSee Third Ann. Rep., p. 235. 



