Bowfin. jnd il is alive with .illi>;alors- the largest obtained by 

 the head guide measured fourteen feet nine inches The alligators 

 eat a great amount of the lily roots and other vegetable matter, 

 as well as gars and other fishes and a lot of fresh-water snails and 

 mussels. On the hummocks, or "islands" as they are called, there 

 are many rattlesnakes, and the waters are full of cottonmouths 

 Besides these, there are many banded water snakes, green water 

 snakes, mud snakes, and innumerable smooth green tree and rat 

 snakes "Turtles'—ie. water tortoises— are everywhere. Strangely, 

 there are no mink here, but there is a special small breed of 

 muskrat, some opossums, and raccoons, and there are now esti- 

 mated to be between thirty-five and forty-five pumas residing 

 here There are also black bears, and these two carnivores are 

 even becoming a little too numerous. Birds are ubiquitous, 

 including egrets, several species of herons, and the Sandhill 

 Crane, a delicate and a noble bird that calls for some of the 

 attention now given so profusely to the poor Whooping Crane. 

 Red-shouldered hawks are also prevalent. Among the mammals 

 we must not forget the Otter, which abounds, the Gray Fox. and 

 the Fox and Southern Gray Squirrels. 



Despite the fact that the Okefenokee is a vast sponge and 

 sucks up moisture from all around, it does develop an excess of 

 water and thus has to have overflows or outflows. These are the 

 St. Marys River and the Suwannee River, down the latter of 

 which we will now travel to the best Southern Pine Belt example 

 of a swamp. And a most remarkable one it is too! 



DOWN UPON THE SUWANNEE 



It is a great shame that the estuary of the Suwannee River has 

 not been set aside as a national preserve: the move appears to 

 be not even contemplated. It is unique and it is still almost 

 perfect, but the bulldozers and shack-builders are already 

 creeping into it from the north, and the resort promoters and 

 station-wagon fishermen from its glorious coast, while the state, 

 county, and federal governments are aiding and abetting its 

 destruction by laying down good roads along its edges. There is 

 one road all down the west side already: another on the opposite 

 bank will doom this lovely natural enclave to extinction among 

 a welter of expensive split-level hovels, gasoline stations for 

 power boats, and the all-pervading beer cans. Here is a bit of 

 America left almost as it was when Ponce de Leon came looking 

 for the Fountain of Youth. And he could well have believed that 

 he had found just that in any of the great "boils" that line the 

 banks of the Suwannee. 



Boils, also appropriately called springs, as found all across 

 northern Florida, are a most remarkable phenomenon. They occur 

 in quite a range of sizes from a diameter of only about ten feet 

 to circular areas on lake bottoms up to a quarter of a mile across. 

 The most impressive are the isolated ones of smaller size, up to 

 about fifty feet in diameter, especially those hidden away alone 

 in the forest. I have one in mind that I shall not name, since it 

 is a natural curiosity that should be left in its own isolation with 

 but one wire-fenced walkway to and from it. whereby its owners, 

 the public, may view it. 



This is about fifty feet in diameter and about ten feet deep, 

 is almost exactly circular, and is completely ardied over by 

 cypresses festooned with Spanish Moss. Its waters are just as 



One of the commonest animals in this province is the 

 Opossum, a most competent creature that has persisted 

 almost unchanged for some seventy million years. 



clear as the air above it, and its bottom is absolutely pristine, 

 pure, white sand Its surrounding bank is about a fcx)i high at 

 normal water level, and it is about three hundred yards from 

 the Suwannee River, with which it is connected by a slightly 

 winding, narrow channel, also sand-bottomed and crystal clear. 

 If you submerge in this pool at its edge and slowly lower your- 

 self until your eyes are just level with the top of the water, you 

 will see to your amazement that the water in it forms a slight 

 but distinct dome rising highest in its center. If you then start 

 to swim toward that center, and even if you are a very strong 

 swimmer, you will find if the big river is normal or low— that 

 it is almost impossible to attain, and that the moment you stop 

 your efforts you are washed back to the bank at an ever in- 

 creasing velocity. If you then just float you will find that, in a 

 few minutes and very slowly, you will be propelled along 

 clockwise until you come to the outgoing channel, into which 

 you will be sucked. 



This strange phenomenon is not unique to Florida, but it is 

 very nearly so. It represents a water-discharge device equivalent 

 to the gas discharges of the bogs but on a continuous system. 

 There is always too much water in and on the great swamps, 

 and as it cannot run off because of the natural levees thrown 

 up by the creeks and greater waterways, and since it cannot go 

 down because the ground is saturated already, it just lies there 

 and presses downward. This forces the waters below to go away 

 sidewise, or anywhere; but. as they have great difficulty in 

 getting out of the swamp into the surrounding moisture-resistant 

 soils and strata, and since they cannot get into the rivers because 

 these are already full and actually stand above them, they burst 

 out onto the surface. The water keeps coming, and it long ago 

 washed away every scrap of vegetable detritus, fine silts, and 

 sands, so that there remain only the coarser sands, the individual 

 grains of which are just large enough not to be pushed away by 

 the force of the upflow. Through these grains the underground 

 water is filtered to absolute blue-white purity and then, having 

 gained the upper hand, as it were, drains rapidly away "down- 

 hill" to the nearest big river. 



STRANGE BEASTS 



The Suwannee River estuary and valley from its wide delta to 

 some fifty miles inland is dotted with these boils. Some are 

 filled with water lilies, alligators, and the monstrous Alligator 

 Snapper, a water tortoise or turtle that may grow to a length of 

 nearly four feet: others are pure and pristine; still others are 

 murky and have no precise outlet, just respilling their endless 

 waters onto the forest floor to be redistributed among the cypress 

 knees. 



The Suwannee River valley has another distinction. It marks 

 the change-over point from peninsular Florida to the true con- 

 tinental land mass, and it partakes of both of these as well as 

 of a coast-fringe aspect and of some oddities of its own. It forms 

 a long wedge with the meandering river wiggling about its center 

 on its way to the sea. Its main channel is lined by perhaps the 

 most magnificent tree growths, outside of the great western 

 conifers, in the continental United States. Cypress predominates 

 all the way, but the two banks are curiously different at all 

 points and for long stretdies, and one type of broad-leafed tree 

 after another comes to the fore, with various oaks predominating, 

 giving the water front a continuously different aspect. Its beauty 

 is quite beyond words, especially in spring. 



Starting about thirty miles from the sea and continuing to it. 

 side creeks lead off with increasing frequency for miles in every 



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