PREFACE. V 



St. Lucia, pours down. Such is the immense quantity that the whole 

 sound between the abovenamcd island and the main, though an arm of 

 the sea, situate in a very salt region, and in general two miles wide, is 

 very often rendered totally fresh thereby; in so much, that it has made 

 the very speculative Mr. De Brahm insist upon having seen mangrove 

 stumps in fresh water. This lake has given rise to the intersected and 

 mangled condition in which we see the peninsula exhibited in old maps." 



It seems pretty certain from the above statement that little or nothing 

 very definite was known of the lake before this period, except, perhaps, 

 to a few who had accidentally visited its shores. The reference, however, 

 to the " intersected and mangled condition " in which the peninsula 

 appears in the earlier maps, clearly indicates that reports of the existence 

 of such a lake had been broadly current, and not impossibly some 

 accounts from personal observations had already been published. Indeed, 

 on the map accompanying the " Account of the First Discovery and 

 Natural History of Florida " of Roberts and Jefferys, published in 

 London in 1763, the Laguna del Kspiritu Santo is made to occupy 

 approximately the position of our Okecchobee, although given a much 

 greater extent than the lake actually occupies. A broad arm of the sea, 

 designated the Bahia del Espiritu Santo, and corresponding in part with 

 the modern Tampa Bay, is represented as opening into it from the west. 

 Possibly the open water-way of the Manatee River suggested this 

 connection. The lake is thus described (p. 18): "Laguna del Espiritu 

 Santo is situated between the islands, extending from north to south 

 about 27 leagues [Si miles], and is near eight leagues wide; it has several 

 communications with the bays on the west side of the peninsula, as well 

 as with the Gulf of Florida. The principal and best known entrance is 

 about three leagues almost west from the Punta de Florida, which lies in 

 26 deg. 20 min. N. latitude. This entrance is two leagues nearly N. W., 

 and at the end of it, in the lake, arc two shoals and six islands, called the 

 Cayos del Espiritu Santo ; this large lake is as yet but little known." 

 The entrance above referred to corresponds to'a position a little to the 

 north of Hillsborough River. 



It is remarkable that these earliest accounts of the lake are but little 

 less vague than those which have been published at various times during 

 the succeeding hundred years, and surprising that our geographical 

 knowledge of so large a portion of the national domain as is covered by 

 the Okeechobee wilderness should have made such little headway. The 

 great difficulty of gaining access to the region, doubtless, in great part 

 accounts for this continued obscurity. Prior to the opening of the 

 Okeechobee canal almost the only available approach was by way of the 

 Kissimmee River. The beautiful waters of the Caloosahatchie, which 

 are unquestionably fed by the Okeechobee swamps, lose themselves 



