298 The National Geographic Magazine 



Outline Map showing Swamp Areas in United States 

 The black indicates swamp areas ; ruled portion indicates areas interspersed with swamps 



ducement to railroad building. This and 

 an earlier grant of 500,000 acres in 1841 

 are in no wise connected with the Swamp 

 and Overflow Act of 1850. This latter 

 act, with succeeding acts of like kind, 

 ceded to the state of Florida and to other 

 states the bulk of the swamp lands with a 

 view to the states constructing the neces- 

 sary levees and drains to reclaim the 

 swamp and overflowed lands within their 

 borders. Among other things, the act 

 provided that the fee-simple title to said 

 lands should vest in the said states "sub- 

 ject to the disposal of the legislatures 

 thereof; provided, however, that the pro- 

 ceeds of the said lands — whether from 

 sale or by direct appropriation in kind — 

 shall be applied exclusively, as far as nec- 

 essary, to the purpose of reclaiming the 

 said lands," etc. Under this act Florida 

 received about 20,000,000 acres of land, 

 "the proceeds of which," the act itself 

 says, "shall be used exclusively for their 

 own drainage." 



But the legislatures of the early eighties 

 were railroad legislatures — they believed 

 in building railroads and opening up the 

 state to immigration; and any company 

 which would agree to build a good road 

 could secure a land grant of from 5,000 

 to 20,000 acres for every mile built, and 

 if the state owned no land contiguous to 

 the line building, it would be given land 

 perhaps several hundred miles distant. 



Governor Jennings, in 1901, took the 

 position that the United States govern- 

 ment has granted these lands to the state 

 for their reclamation and drainage, and 

 that the law had not intended that these 

 lands should be given railroads which 

 had not built perhaps within two hundred 

 miles of them. His successor. Governor 

 Broward, introduced a bill, which was 

 passed with only four votes recorded 

 against it in both houses, and in order to 

 make the act secure a joint resolution for 

 an amendment to the constitution of the 

 state embodying this act was also passed. 



