84 FLORIDA : ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS, 



HARBOR AND CITY OF PENSACOLA. 



The Gulf of Mexico is the natural basin for a larger extent of coun- 

 try than any similar sheet of water on the globe, and the finest bay 

 and harbor on its coast is that of Pensacola, on which are located 

 Forts Pickens and Barrancas and the Warrenton navy -yard. 



The city of Pensacola, located at the head of the bay, is a most beau- 

 tiful place, and deserves special mention as the most attractive feature 

 of West Florida. The following description is derived from an official 

 publication of the Commissioner of Immigration : 



The city of Peusacola has natural advantages which destine it to become, by rapid 

 strides, the Chicago of the South. It is situated on the north coast of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, in latitude 30 28' north and longitude 87 22' west of Greenwich, only 10 

 miles from the open sea. Its thoroughly laud-locked harbor covers an area of over 

 200 square miles, being about 30 miles long and from 5 to 8 miles in width, having 

 unsurpassed anchorage, and a depth of from 30 to 35 feet. The entrance to the harbor 

 is about half a mile wide, with an average depth on the bar of twenty-four feet. The 

 same depth is readily secured at the wharfage line in the city. A laden ship of the 

 largest tonnage can approach the city at any time in the year, or leaving its wharf 

 <;an be in the open sea in an hour and a half. 



As a place of residence, Peusacola is attractive by a healthy and genial climate. It 

 has an abundance of excellent pure water, and the regularly changing laud and sea 

 breezes make it a pleasant abode at all seasons. Its gardens aiford flowers and fruit 

 winter and summer. Most tropical plants grow there, and require but little protec- 

 tion from the cold in winter, whilst all kinds of cereals and northern fruit yield early 

 and abundant crops. The soil of the immediate vicinity is sandy and the drainage 

 perfect. 



The lands of the neighboring country are of the character known as swamp, ham- 

 mock, and pine. The swamp lands are those lying on the Escambia and Perdido 

 Rivers and their tributaries, and are remarkable for their exhaustless fertility, those 

 brought under cultivation yielding heavy crops of corn, cotton, rice, and sugar-cane. 

 The great body of these lands is covered with oak and cypress forests, ready to the 

 hand of the great ship-building interests, which the progress of commerce will speed- 

 ily foster. 



The hammock lands are intermediate between the swamp and pine tracts. They 

 afford the healthiest localities for settlements, and are easily cultivated, yielding 

 abundant returns for the labor bestowed on them. 



The pine lands have an exhaustless wealth of the best timber, whilst the herbage 

 of the forest affords permanent pasturage for cattle, which require no shelter and very 

 little care. 



All these classes of lands are readily reclaimed for agricultural purposes, whilst the 

 forest will for a century to come supply the growing export trade in timber. 



The commerce of Pensacola has hitherto been limited to the export of Florida tim- 

 ber brought down on the rivers and creeks emptying into its Magnificent bay. Want of 

 communication has been an impediment to its growth, but the completion, in the winter 

 of 1870, of the Peusacola and Louisville Railroad to its junction with the Mobile and 

 Montgomery Railroad', establishing a connect in;/ link with the entire railroad system North 

 and West, must speedily lift Pensacola to the dignity of a first-class commercial city. 

 Bv this link in the great chain of railroads, Pensacola is brought as near to Chicago 

 as is New York. 



The best customers and consumers of the great grain and produce growing West live 

 upon the shores of the Gulf, in the West India Islands, in Central and South America. 

 The Pensacola route of transportation shortens the exchange of commodities between 



