Notices of the Floridas, 4^c, 121 



The northern part of East Florida is intersected by the 

 river St. Johns, the largest stream in the Territory. It has 

 its origin in a marsh not many railes from the sea, and ad- 

 jacent to the head of Indian river. In the rainy season 

 these streams communicate. The St. Johns pursues a very 

 serpentine course north to Lake George, through a vi^ide 

 rich, but miry valley, that appears but recently reclaimed 

 from the flood ; marl and banks of shells often occur. 

 If this wet and extensive alluvial tract could be drained, it 

 would afford very valuable sugar-lands. The upper part 

 of the basin is divested of trees, presenting a soft, grassy 

 savanna, apparently unbounded. 



Lake George, an expansion of the St. John's, is near 

 fifty miles in circumference, but shallow. It is environed 

 by pine lands, swamps, and a few good hammocks. A 

 considerable stream that empties into the lake on its 

 western side, called the silver spring, is bordered to its 

 source by limestone ledges and banks ; this large body of 

 water, with great force, issues from the earth, through cal- 

 careous rocks and proceeding probably from unfathomed 

 depths, it may be the outlet of some interior lake, passing 

 through limestone caves. Limestone, in situ, abounds on 

 an island situated in the northern part of the lake, and 

 borders on, or forms the bed of the St. Johns, in many 

 places, between Lake George and Bonavista. 



The river is navigable to Lake George, by any vessel 

 that can pass its ocean bar, which has fourteen feet of 

 water at high tide. The St. Johns pursues a northern 

 course to Jacksonville, with a lake-like expanse of waters, 

 being in several places four miles in width ; the water 

 shallow, except in a comparatively narrow channel, the 

 tide rising but one foot. For the remainder of its distance, 

 twenty miles to the sea, the river takes an eastern direc- 

 tion, contracted to the width of a mile, the tide rising six 

 feet. 



Below Bonavista which is situated about one hundred 

 miles from the river's mouth, there is but little good land 

 adjacent to the river. The surface is occupied by pine 

 barrens, swamps, and narrow hammocks with a sandy soil, 

 but the ranges for cattle are in parts excellent. 



Under the Spanish government, scattering plantations 

 appeared on the river for seventy miles, but many were 



Vol. IX,^Ng. I. 16 



