| 
mere 
——— 
Notices of the Floridas, &c. 121 
front the aa marl an an ~~ shells often occur. 
If this wet and extensive alluvial tract could be drained, it 
would afford very valuable sugar-lands. The upper part 
of the basin is divested of trees, presenting a soft, grassy 
savanna, apparently unbounded. 
Lake George, an expansion of the St. John’s, is near 
fifty miles in circumference, but shallow. It is environed 
by pine lands, swamps, and a few good hammocks. A 
considerable stream that empties into the lake on its 
western side, called the silver spring, is bordered to its 
source by limestone ledges and banks; this large body of 
water, with great force, issues from the earth, through cal- 
careous rocks and proceeding probably from unfathomed 
depths, it may be the outlet of some interior lake, passing 
through limestone caves. Limestone, in situ, abounds on 
an island situated in the northern part of the lake, and 
borders on, or forms the bed of the St. Johns, in many 
places, between Lake George and Bonavista. 
he river is navigable to Lake George, by any vessel 
water at high tide. The St. Johns pursues a northern 
course to Jacksonville, with a lake-like expanse of waters, 
eing in several places four. miles in width; the water 
shallow, except in a comparatively narrow channel, the 
tide rising butone foot. For the remainder of its distance, 
twenty miles to the sea, the river takes an eastern direc- 
tion, contracted to the width of a mile, the tide rising six 
eet. 
elow Bonavista which is situated about one handrea 
miles from the river’s mouth, there is but little good land 
adjacent to the river. The surface is occupied by pine 
barrens, swamps, and narrow hammocks with “5 sandy soil, 
but the ranges for cattle are in parts excellen 
Under the Spanish government, eae plantations 
appeared on the river for seventy miles, but many were 
Vor. 1X.—No. I, 16 
that can pass its ocean bar, which has fourteen feet of 
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