52 



RESOURCES OF SOUTHERN ALABAMA. 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



The topography is mostly gently undulating. The 

 streams are small (except the Chattahoochee River) and 

 usually sluggish, and there are many small shallow ponds, 

 some of them with open water, but most of them full of 

 cypress, black gum, May-haw, or various shrubs. Caves 

 and lime-sinks occur in a few places, but less commonly than 

 in the corresponding parts of the two adjoining states. 

 Omussee Creek, which enters the Chattahoochee River a lit- 

 tle below Columbia, is an exception to the general sluggish- 

 ness of the streams, for it has some rocky shoals which have 

 recently been dammed up to generate electricity for Dothan. 



FIG. 16. Scene in badly cut-over long-leaf pine forest about six 

 miles west of Healing Springs, Washington County, with compara- 

 tively 'level country in foreground and low .hills about half a mile 

 away. July 20, 1911. 



SOILS. 



Exact information about the soils is rather meager, for 

 the soil surveys of Geneva and Houston Counties are not 

 published yet. But from the reports on Covington County 

 and part of a county in West Florida it appears that the 

 prevailing texture classes are fine sandy loam, sandy loam, 

 swamp, sand, and fine sand. Generally speaking, there are 



