122 Notices of the Floridas, &c. 
abandoned during the patriot war, and have not been re- 
sumed since the change of flags. 
The river St. Marys, which is the northern boundary of 
the alluvial pine clad region of East Florida, is navigable 
seventy miles by vessels drawing twelve feet water—~a canal 
connecting this river with a stream of Florida that emp- 
ties into the Gulf of Mexico is contemplated, the distance 
between their boatable head waters being about twenty 
miles. 
Forty miles from the sea, I remarked ledges of argil- 
laceous rock on the bank of a stream near the St. Ma- 
rys, and they occur in the bed of that river—this stone is 
fine-grained, hard, white, and with strata in horizontal po- 
sition. 
At this distance from the coast, the river winds among 
clay hills, thinly coated with sand; they extend twenty 
miles up the stream ; the clay soil is productive, and high- 
ly coloured by oxide of iron. 
The Atlantic shore of Florida is bordered by islands and 
peninsulas, generally separated from the continent by nar- 
row navigable channels. Amelia, Talbot, and Fort George 
islands, situated between the St. Marys and St. Johns, re- 
semble the isles of Georgia. Sand greatly predominates 
in the soil, and the uncleared surface is occupied by thinly 
seattered pines, and live oak thickets. Sea-island cotton 
is the principal crop; and of this, from 100 to 150 pounds 
of clean cotton are produced on an acre. Little attention 
is paid to improving the soil by manure; it is left fallow to 
recruit. By a dressing of salt grass or rich mud from the ex- 
tensive marshes adjacent, from 250 to 300 pounds of cotton 
may annually be produced per acre, at an expense in la- 
bour of four dollars. The experiment has been successful- 
ly tried, by Mr. John Couper of St. Simons, one of the 
most intelligent and respectable planters of Georgia. Cat- 
tle grazed on the salt meadows of Florida and Georgia are 
subject to a fatal disease called salt sickness. Mr. Couper 
has discovered that ashes mixed with food is a certain cure, 
probably neutralizing an acid. 
There are large mounds of oyster shells on most of the 
isiands and adjacent continent, left doubtless by the In- 
dians. The valves are separated, and not entire as in the 
diluvial beds of New-Jersey. Extensive oyster beds occur 
