Remarks upon East Florida. 49 



movement of one mile an hour. Below Lake George, which is 

 more than two hundred miles from its mouth, the tides have a 

 slight effect, and vary the current accordingly, modified, how- 

 ever, by strong winds. Still, the waters have not any where a 

 stagnant appearance, and if unpalatable, they are so from causes 

 independent of their want of proper agitation. They are uni- 

 formly of a dark color, like that of tolerably strong coffee, the 

 bottom scarcely being discoverable even in the shoal parts. The 

 origin of this tint may be various ; decomposition of vegetable 

 matter can contribute but little to affect a body of water so large, 

 particularly when a considerable portion of the banks are either 

 savannas or pine bluffs, neither likely to have much agency in 

 this way. Lake Monroe may furnish a chalybeate tincture, as its 

 shores abound in chalybeate earths. The lakes above may bear 

 the same character. The waters do not lose their color when 

 suffered to stand in a vessel and to make deposit of such parti- 

 cles as may be afloat in them. 



The St. John's is a large river for some hundred and fifty miles 

 from its mouth, being from three miles to a mile wide nearly as 

 high as Lake George. Thus far it has the appearance of an arm 

 of the sea, and in fact feels the influence of the tides. From 

 Lake George upwards it is comparatively narrow, excepting where 

 it dilates into lakes, and very winding, running perhaps several 

 miles in one mile of a straight line. Lake George has been long 

 known, and Lake Monroe, about sixty miles above, was occupied 

 by our troops the first campaign of the present war. Thence 

 upwards the river was to be explored at the commencement of 

 the present campaign. It was soon penetrated through Lake 

 Jesup to Lake Harvey, and afterwards to I^ake Poinsett, about a 

 hundred miles above Lake Monroe. 



Charleston and Savannah steamboats ascended with army sup- 

 plies without difficulty, at the high stage of the waters, to Lake 

 Harvey, which supplies were sent thence by row-barges to Lake 

 Poinsett, where the river ceased to be subservient to the purposes 

 of transportation. This high stage was in the fall ; as the winter 

 months set in, the larger boats could ascend no higher than Lake 

 Monroe, until spring rains again raised the level of the waters. 



The banks of the river as high as Pilatka, or more than one 

 hundred miles from its mouth, are generally elevated several feet 

 above the water. From that point to Lake George they are com- 



YoL. XXXV.— No. I. 7 



