Remarks upon East Florida. 53 
useless for all purposes of transportation. 'The army there took 
its course southwardly, reaching the head waters of the St. John’s, 
some seventy or eighty miles S. 8. E. The source of this river 
has been in question. up to this time, having been supposed’to be 
connected either with the everglades or the sea. Both of these sup- 
positions are now at anend. The strip of land between the coast 
and the St. John’s, as far south as Cape Florida, has been suffi- 
ciently explored, to determine the fact, that it has no channel 
connection with the sea in that quarter; and it has been equally 
ascertained, by various army movements, that it is also without a 
like connection with the everglades or thé lakes, to the west and 
south-west. In rainy seasons, when the water overspreads nearly 
the whole country, the St. John’s may be connected in a diffused 
way with both sides. Fall and spring rains, when they come, ele- 
vate the river sometimes many feet, as would appear by marks on 
the banks. The last two or three seasons, the difference has been 
from two to three feet. The low stages are, at mid-summer and 
mid-winter, and when the periodical rains happen to fall, or are 
only moderate, the subsidence must be very great. It has. been 
remarked by the Indians, that all the waters occasionally drain 
out. This may be an exaggeration; but such a result, nearly to 
the extent expressed by it, might easily be supposed to follow a 
year of drought, the St. John’s being evidently dependent for its 
supply on the tides below and the rains above. 
The interior of Florida, south of Lake Monroe, was iam 
weet ‘until the present war. It was assigned by conjecture 
and common: report, to the “ everglades,” an indefinite and com- 
prehensive term, which means neither land nor water, but a mix- 
ture of bathe: eas ‘supposed e everglades, have been much ci 
They have lost, at least, one 
or two degrees ae latitude. -Okachobee. Lake, a body of - ate 
of some forty miles in diameter, and of a decided lake character 
and the lands east and west of it, can no longer be thus classe 
The lake south of this, reported to be still larger than Okachobee, 
called by the Indians, Pai-hai-pbos; or grassy lake, may prove, on 
examination, the true everglades. But it is now about as proba- 
ble, that even this, their last hold, will be found to partake of the 
general character of that part of the peninsula, and that land and 
water will then have its usual divisions, so far as a sandy country 
of unusual flatness permits. ‘The name which the Indians have 
