INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, PHILADELPHIA. 45 



siderably more to the north. But no direct course is maintained by 

 either of these branches for any great distance. It is not exactly impos- 

 sible that other branches, choked at the time of our visit, may open out 

 at seasons into the main channel of equal value with the above, which 

 we were unable to discover. The creek receives three important acces- 

 sions from the east before the first deflection above indicated. 



Nowhere along that portion of the creek explored by us did we find 

 a true bank or shore, the water on either side spilling off into the vast 

 expanse of forest-swamp, principally cypress, which here opens out from 

 the lake. The heaviest timber growth is along the eastern tributaries 

 and immediately about the mouth of the creek, where the parallel walls 

 of majestic cypresses, draped from top to bottom in their funereal hangings 

 of Spanish moss, and towering to a nearly uniform height of 125-150 

 feet, exhibit to surprising advantage the sylvan wonders of this primeval 

 solitude. It would be vain to attempt to depict by word the solemn 

 grandeur of these untrodden wilds, the dark recesses, almost untouched 

 by the light of day, that peer forbiddingly into a wealth of boundless 

 green or to convey to the mind a true conception of the exuberance of 

 vegetable life that is here presented. At no time before our visit had I 

 been so thoroughly impressed with the wild grandeur of an untrodden 

 wilderness nowhere where I so keenly appreciated the insignificance of 

 my own humble being in the sea of life by which I was surrounded. 



I made several attempts to penetrate the maze of waters that consti- 

 tute the "floor" of the forest, and out of which the latter rises, but found 

 the tree-trunks and cypress knees almost everywhere too- numerous, ren- 

 dering it impossible to direct the skiff. The water was uniformly limpid, 

 and nowhere did it appear to be covered with a miasmatic scum of vege- 

 table organisms. Large fields of lettuce float freely on its surface, impelled 

 in given directions by the ever-changing currents that sweep through the 

 interior; where heavily packed these floating gardens are practically 

 impenetrable, and readily cany with them obstacles of a movable char- 

 acter, such as a boat, that might be caught in their path. 



The predominating trees of these swamps are the cypress, bay, live- 

 oak, water-oak, and maple, which together impart the physiognomy to 

 the vegetation ; occasional palms appear here and there in the less 

 secluded parts of the forest, but evidently neither the watery bottom, nor 

 the exclusion of light which the dense overhanging canopy of interlaced 

 branches affords, is favorable to their development. Although the trees 

 rise to a very considerable height, but few of them attain to really great 

 dimensions. The majority of the larger cypresses do not exceed five or 

 six feet in diameter, and the vast bulk of the trees measure still less ; 

 an oak, the largest tree seen on the creek,- was estimated to measure 

 about eleven feet a few feet above the roots. A remarkable climbing 



