southern Florida are quite impressive in parts, such as south of 

 Everglades City to Lostman's Creek, they are paltry little things 

 compared to the growths of the equatorial regions or even of the 

 subtropics. where they may grow to over sixty feet in height and 

 have massed, impenetrable aerial roots springing from their 

 large trunks as much as ten feel above ground To be lost in a 

 mangrove swamp, with or without a machete, is probably the 

 most lethal accident that could befall anybody 



Mangrove stands that are apparently lifeless are not so. 

 though they seem in a way to "filter" animals so that only one 

 type of each large group is found in them. There is usually a 

 small carnivorous mammal, in this case the raccoon; there are 

 only a few birds, and these almost exclusively along creeks; in- 

 variably a crab; and then there are mosquitoes and. what is 

 worse, the sandflies. 



In Florida, if you get lost in the mangroves or your plane is 

 downed among them, you will be supremely unlucky if you do 

 not have at least two handkerchiefs, many safely pins, and pref- 

 erably a spare shirt. The first thing you should do is make a face 

 mask out of one handkerchief and a tudt-in nedc mask with the 

 other, then replace your headgear if you have any. Next, roll 

 down your sleeves and button them tight: then tuck your pants 

 into your boots, and button up your collar or pin all these things 

 tightly. If you have a spare shirt, put it on. because by wiggling 

 a little all the time you can break off the mosquitoes' probosces 

 between the two meshes. If you are a woman wearing a skirt, 

 you had best divest yourself of underclothes and use them as 

 wrappings for your legs, tear up anything else you can spare 

 to make thongs to bind these and to make some arm coverings 

 and a head mask. Try generally to make a continuous covering 

 all over yourself, since you can be blinded or otherwise quite 

 incapacitated in a surprisingly short time by mosquito bites. The 

 average person simply does not know what a hundred square 

 miles of hungry mosquitoes can do to a human being. Do not 

 take mangroves lightly; they are deadly. 



KEY DEER AND SEA COWS 



Beyond the tip of the mainland lie the so-called "keys" or cays. 

 These form an immensely long, curving belt of sandy, wooded, 

 and coraline islands fingering out into the Gulf. On some of 

 these are the little stunted variety of deer that are now at long 

 last quite famous, and that some people have made great efforts 

 to protect. Cays still exist that are not spoiled, and they smadc 

 of the Caribbean though they are not equivalent to the true cays 

 of the West Indies, which lie to the equatorial side of the desert 

 belt. There is coral — unlike Bermuda, where it is absent — but it 

 is a sort of outwash of the great Gulf whirligig, and if the Gulf 

 Stream were cut off. it would probably all disappear. 



Both on the cays and along the whole west or Gulf coast, from 

 Cape Sable to the Suwannee River, may still be found in limited 

 numbers the Manatee or Sea Cow. those placid, munching, 

 marine and estuarine mammals related to the elephants. They 

 grow to about ten feet (the record is thirteen feet four inches) in 

 length. They have two small foreflippers on their intumed 

 wrists and walk along the bottom, and they have great, circular, 

 paddle-shaped, horizontal tails. But for all their placid appear- 

 ance they can get about at some speed, make unexpectedly 

 sharp turns, and deliver thundering blows in all directions with 



An ash "slough" or slew, a type of swamp found in Florida. 

 Cypress trees flourish in it. 



their tails: 1 know, because 1 have ridden them In shallow 

 water, holding on by sticking my fingers Into the soft holes In 

 front of the foreflippers. It is a great experience and rather 

 pleasant, for you just go rushing along, and after a lime the 

 curious beasts seem not to bother about their "Old Man of the 

 Sea" and really seem to enjoy the antic They have extraordinary 

 mouths with great clumping, side-moving, bulbous lips covered 

 with bristles, and tiny eyes surrounded by wrinkles. They feed 

 on such vegetable matter as sea grasses and what are called 

 locally "water lettuces." some of whidi are violently poisonous 

 to us. as 1 can personally attest 



There is a persistent legend that the manatees are the origin 

 of the mermaid tradition because they do have a habit of 

 standing straight up in the water and observing you. and have 

 breasts up almost in their armpits, not too far removed from the 

 position of our own. However, they never hold their babies to 

 their chests with their flippers, as is often alleged. 



VANISHED SEAS AND FOSSIL BEACHES 



The whole historical basis of peninsular Florida is still manifest 

 to the geologist in its present land surface and to the botanist 

 in its vegetative cover. There were four major stages in its 

 formation, during which seas named the Okefenokee, Wicomico, 

 Pamlico, and Silver Bluff more or less covered it, bathed its 

 numerous islands (or hummocks), or surrounded what is its pres- 

 ent shore line. Although the Gulf Stream swirls northward up 

 its east coast, inshore-counter currents made up mostly of great 

 eddies are also found starting from just below Cape Hatteras. 

 These act like the brushes of a carpet-sweeper, swirling the 

 beach material and steadily driving it southward. The whole of 

 Florida has actually come off the Appalachians and. for over a 

 million years, has been slowly grubbed off the Georgia coast by 

 these eddies, then filtered and sorted, and redeposited. first into 

 a string of islands, then between these and extending them to 

 the south, and finally turning west till we get the great hook 

 of present-day Florida. 



The actions and modes of deposition of this material form 

 a fascinating story; and by following these old coast lines via 

 the parallel dune formations, geologists have been able to re- 

 construct the stages in the formation of Florida. Along the way. 

 the vegetation has come about in a rather unique manner. This, 

 apart from that of the open prairies, the flatwoods. and the 

 typical hummocks, is divided between two types of mixed 

 growth called the Sandhill (composed mostly of long-leaf pine 

 and turkey oaks) and the Sandpine "Scrub." Of the last there are 

 three subtypes; those found on old dunes, those on old and new 

 beaches and offshore bars, and those on the so-called hilltops, 

 which are mostly the original islands of the Okefenokee Sea 

 period. These are flat-topped and between 125 and HO feet 

 above sea level today, and are usually surrounded by areas of 

 Sandhill vegetation or by flatwoods. These ancient islands have 

 managed to retain their individuality as well as to preserve their 

 special types of vegetation, and each forms a unique ecological 

 niche. The Okefenokee beach level is now at about 150 feet, 

 that of the old Wicomico Sea at 100 feet, of the Pamlico at 25 to 

 30 feet, and of the Silver Bluff Sea. which existed after the last 

 great ice advance, only 8 to 10 feet up. 



Peninsular Florida is one of the most interesting and instruc- 

 tive provinces on our continent So much has gone on there so 

 recently, and so mudi is still taking place there under our very- 

 eyes, that we can here get many of the basic lessons in ecology 

 which in other places are hidden by age. 



185 



