120 M>tices of the Floridas, 4rc. 



The sea board and southern portion of East Florida is 

 mostly alluvial. The north-eastern part of the peninsula, 

 between the head waters of St. Mary's, the river St. John, 

 and the ocean, varies little in surface, soil, and vegetable 

 productions, from the coast of Georgia, and is generally 

 very level. 



Large swamps and hammocks,* or dense groves, con- 

 taining a variety of trees of annual and perennial verdure, 

 are insulated in this generally pine barren region, ranging 

 parallel with the ocean, or bordering on streams- The 

 surface soil of the pine barrens and branch swamps, is 

 mostly fine sand, blended with vegetable mould in propor- 

 tion to the moisture of the ground, often resting on 

 clay or compact earth at various depths ; some of 

 the large hammocks are dry part of the year, and 

 have a deep vegetable soil, based on rich marl, but 

 it is doubtful whether they can be cultivated, as in 

 the rainy months of June, July, and August, when crops 

 are on the ground, the swamps are filled with water which 

 falls in torrents, and slowly drains from the flat surface of 

 the country. In the extensive pine districts, trees of ye- 

 low and pitch pine are thinly scattered, and there is little 

 underwood. The young sprouts are destroyed by fires 

 proceeding from accident, or annually kindled to foster 

 grass, which in spring clothes the ground with a luxuriant 

 carpet often presenting, as far as visiosi can eixtend beau- 

 tiful green lawns and prairies resembling young wheat 

 fields. Fires are most intense on ground much of the 

 year wet, and producing a rank vegetation ; many trees are 

 destroyed, they are swept from large tracts, forming 

 prairiesj or left single, and in park-like groups. Except 

 on its borders the peninsula of St. John is an unsettled 

 wilderness. 



"* The word hammock is in general use ia Florida, as descriptive of a 

 thicket or forest, containing a diversity of trees, usually live oak, magno- 

 lia, gum, ash, maple, fee. in contradisticction to open woods of pine bar- 

 ren, greMly predominating at the south, k is a term used in all their 

 newspapers and in the descriptions in deeds, and vi^as introduced into the 

 late treaty made with the Indian tribes of Florida The " Big Hammock" 

 mentioned in my communication is the northern boundary of the Indiaa 

 reservation. The soil of these hammocks is regarded as the best in the Ter- 

 ritory. By some these thickets are divided into wet and dry. 



