Remarks upon E 
49 
movement of. one mile an hour. . E low | 4 ke George, which is 
more than two hundred: miles outh, the tides have a 
slight effect, and vary the current accordingly, modified, how- 
ever, by strong winds. Still, the waters have not any where a 
stagnant appearance, and if unpalatable, they are so from causes 
independent of their want of proper agitation, They are uni- 
formly of a dark color, like that of tolerably strong coflee, the 
bottom scarcely being. discoverable even in the shoal parts. 'The 
origin of this tint may be various ; decomposition of vegetable 
matter, can contribute but little to affect a body of water so large, 
particularly when a considerable portion of the banks are either 
savannas or pine bluffs, neither likely to have much 
this way. Lake Monroe may furnish a chalybeate tincture, as its 
shores abound in chalybeate earths. The lakes above may bear 
the same character. The waters do not lose their color when 
suffered to stand in a vessel and to make deposit of such parti- 
cles as may be afloat in them. 
The St. John’s is a large river for 8 some hundred and fifty miles 
from its mouth, being from three r miles to a mile wide nearly as 
high as Lake George. Thus far it has the appearance of an arm 
of the sea, and in fact’ feels the influence of the tides. From 
Lake George upwards it is comparatively narrow, excepting where 
it dilates into lakes, and very winding, running perhaps several. 
miles in one mile of a straight line. Lake George has been long 
known, and Lake Monroe, about sixty miles above, was occupied 
by our troops the first campaign of the present war. ‘Thence 
upwards the river was to be explored at the commencement of 
the present campaign. It was soon penetrated through Lake 
Jesup to Lake Harvey, nar aier wards J to Lake potas about a 
handset raguag | 
Sav | with army sup- 
i witede difficulty, at the iy stage of the- waters, to Lake 
Harvey, which supplies were sent thence by row-barges to Lake 
Poinsett, where the river ceased to be subservient to the purposes 
of transportation. This high stage was in the fall ; as the winter 
months set in, the larger boats could ascend no higher than Lake 
Monroe, until spring rains again raised the level of the waters. 
The banks of the river as high as Pilatka, or more than one 
hundred miles from its mouth, are generally elevated several feet 
above the water. From that point to Lake George they are com- 
Vou. XXXV.—No. 1. 7 
