32 FLORDA I ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, 



BronsoD, the county seat, is on the railroad, the centre of a well- settled 

 portion of the county. 



LA FAYETTE COUNTY. 



Bounded north by Stiwannee ; east by Suwannee, Alachua, and Levy, 

 from all of which it is separated by the Suwannee Eiver j south by the 

 Gulf of Mexico ; and west by Taylor County. Contains an area of over 

 1,200 square miles. The land is principally heavy timbered pine lands, 

 with many large tracts of hammock, a portion with a strong clay foun- 

 dation and productive. The principal business is stock-growing and 

 lumbering, but it is eligible for agriculture and fruit-growing, and the 

 Suwannee, which skirts its eastern boundary, is navigable for steamers 

 to New Troy, the county seat. 



MARION COUNTY. 



Bounded north by Alachua and Putman, east by Putman, Volusia, 

 and Orange, south by Sumter and Hernando, and west by Levy County. 

 Containing an area of 1,000 square miles. It is one of the larg'est, most 

 fertile, productive counties of the State, especially in Sea Island cotton 

 and sugar cane. The lands are generally elevated and undulating, and 

 drain both to the Ocean and Gulf. There is very little poor and un- 

 available lands, the most being rich and productive. The pine lands are 

 almost uniformly good, underlaid with clay, marl, limestone. The ham- 

 mocks are extensive and very rich, and will equal the best lands of the 

 Mississippi in producing. Sandstone for building purposes is in great 

 abundance. The Ocklawaha Eiver, a tributary of the Saint John's, and 

 navigated by steamers daily, runs north across the center of the county. 



The celebrated Silver Spring forms a basin of two or three acres in 

 extent near the center of the county; it pours forth a volume of water 

 from one to two hundred feet wide, discharging into the Ocklawaha. 

 Blue Spring, almost as remarkable, and not much inferior in size, lies 

 in the northwestern portion of the county, and sends forth a stream of 

 clear blue water into the Withlacoochee Eiver, some twenty miles from 

 the Gulf. Sulphur springs are numerous ; the most noted is known as 

 Orange Spring, in the northeastern portion of the county, which was 

 formerly a great resort for invalids. Orange Lake, celebrated for the 

 large orange groves on its borders, which are the most extensive of any 

 in the State, occupying an area of over 1,000 acres, lies in the northern 

 portion of the county, and is now connected by the Peninsular Eailroad 

 with the Atlantic, irulf and West India Transit Eailway at Waldo. 



Lakes Churchill and Bryant, in the eastern, and the beautiful Lake 

 Weir, in the southern part of the county, are the most prominent and 

 attractive of the inland water of the county. 



Ocala, the county seat, situated six miles from Silver Spring, is a 

 growing business town. The Peninsular Eailroad is completed to this 

 place, from which it will be extended southward to Tampa and Charlotte 



