Remarks upon East Florida^ 53 



useless for all purposes of transportation. The army there took 

 its course southwardly, reaching the head waters of the St. John's, 

 some seventy or eighty miles S. S. E. The source of this river 

 has been in question up to this time, having been supposed to be 

 connected either with the everglades or the sea. Both of these sup- 

 positions are now at an end. The strip of land between the coast 

 and the St. John's, as far south as Cape Florida, has been suffi- 

 ciently explored, to determine the fact, that it has no channel 

 connection with the sea in that quarter ; and it has been equally 

 ascertained, by various army movements, that it is also without a 

 like connection with the everglades or the lakes, to the west and 

 south-west. In rainy seasons, when the water overspreads nearly 

 the whole country, the St John's may be connected in a diffused 

 way with both sides. Fall and spring rains, when they come, ele- 

 vate the river sometimes many feet, as would appear by marks on 

 the banks. The last two or three seasons, the difference has been 

 from two to three feet. The low stages are, at mid-summer and 

 mid-winter, and when the periodical rains happen to fall, or are 

 only moderate, the subsidence must be very great. It has been 

 remarked by the Indians, that all the waters occasionally drain 

 out. This may be an exaggeration ,• but such a result, nearly to 

 the extent expressed by it, might easily be supposed to follow a 

 year of drought, the St. John's being evidently dependent for its 

 supply on the tides below and the rains above. 



The interior of Florida, south of Lake Monroe, was scarcely 

 known, until the present war. It was assigned by conjecture 

 and common report, to the " everglades," an indefinite and com- 

 prehensive term, which means neither land nor water, but a mix- 

 ture of both. These supposed everglades, have been much cir- 

 cumscribed by late examinations. They have lost, at least, one 

 or -two degrees of latitude. Okachobee Lake, a body of water 

 of some forty miles in diameter, and of a decided lake character, 

 and the lands east and west of it, can no longer be thus classed. 

 The lake south of this, reported to be still larger than Okachobee, 

 called by the Indians, Pai-hai-okee, or grassy lake, may prove, on 

 examination, the true everglades. But it is now about as proba- 

 ble, that even this, their last hold^ will be found to partake of the 

 general character of that part of the peninsula, and that land and 

 water will then have its usual divisions, so far as a sandy country 

 of unusual flatness permits. The name which the Indians have 



