596 STEVENSON— FORMATION OF COAL BEDS. [November 3. 



and the surface is a "prairie." This type has an area of 100 square 

 miles in the western part of the swamp, covered everywhere by 

 water in wet weather, so that one ma}' go in any direction in a canoe. 

 Canes, pickerel weed and water lilies abound but Sphagnum is 

 absent, as in this latitude it can grow only in shaded places. Stumps 

 of cypress are abundant and the peat is about 10 feet thick. The 

 Florida swamps, described by Harper and others in the official re- 

 ports, show all types from the open marsh to the forested swamp. 

 The cypress swamps of the Lake region have grass marshes near 

 the water, which are separated from the dense cypress growth by a 

 narrow belt of small willows. The peat in these deposits is worth 

 little commercially, as it is crowded with logs and woody roots. The 

 great Everglades area belongs to the stagnant water type. 



The cypress swamps of the Gulf coast are like those of the 

 Atlantic coast. LyelP^^ relates that, in excavating for the founda- 

 tions of the New Orleans Gas Works, the contractor soon discovered 

 that he had to deal not with soil but with buried timber; the diggers 

 were replaced by expert axemen. The cypress and other trees were 

 " superimposed one upon the other, in an upright position, with 

 their roots as they grew." The State Surveyor reported that in 

 digging the great canal from Lake Ponchartrain, a cypress swamp 

 was cut, which had filled gradually. " for there were three tiers of 

 stumps in the 9 feet, some of them very old, ranged one above the 

 other ; and some of the stumps must have rotted away to the level of 

 the ground in the swamp before the upper ones grew over them." 



Conditions in the cypress swamps are the same throughout, 

 whether the prevailing tree be bald cypress or white cedar. The 

 peat is formed by accumulation of litter in the dense forest and, for 

 the most part, the swamps are due to impeded drainage on an almost 

 level surface. The trees are rooted in the swamp material, which 

 at times is of great thickness, more than 150 feet of muck, carrying 

 cypress trees on its surface, being reported from Florida. Such 

 trees find ample nutriment in peat containing less than 4 per cent, 

 of mineral matter and they do not send their roots down to the solid 

 ground. One sees growing amid such conditions not merely shrubs 



"' C. T.yell, " Second Visit," etc., Vol. II., pp. 136, 137. 



194 



