ALTAMAHA GRIT REGION OF GEORGIA 25 



small and often intermittent branch, 1 bordered by more or less 

 swamp. 2 In some cases the very head of a branch is not surround- 

 ed by swamp, but is occupied by moisture-loving herbs. Such a 

 place is known as a "dreen. " 3 The branches of course unite 

 into larger streams (creeks and rivers) at longer intervals. 



A most striking feature of the Altamaha Grit region, and in 

 Georgia mostly confined to it, is the sand-hills, which border the 

 swamps of nearly all the creeks and rivers. With few exceptions 

 (such as Rocky Creek in Tattnall County, House Creek in Wilcox, 

 and the Ochlocknee River in Thomas), the sand-hills are all on 

 the left (northeast) sides of the streams to which they belong. 



The sand-hills consist merely of homogeneous deposits of 

 Columbia sand, sometimes at least 25 feet deep and over a mile 

 wide, bordering the streams. The fact that they are called hills 



1 The term "branch," as used universally throughout Georgia and 

 doubtless in adjacent states, and to some extent as far north as Maryland 

 and Indiana, is synonymous with "brook" in New England and vicinity.' 

 "Branch" in this sense is rarely seen in print, and might be considered 

 by some as a mere provincialism, but the only reason "brook" has the 

 preference is that it happens to be used in the thickly settled parts of the 

 English -speaking world, where more literature to the square mile has been 

 produced than anywhere else. Abbot in his Georgia Insects (p. 25), 

 published in London in 1797, mentions "rivulets, or branches, as they are 

 called in America," and in F. A. Michaux's North American Sylva, pub- 

 lished early in the 19th century, there are frequent references to branch, 

 swamps. (See for instance under Gordonia Lasianthus in the third volume 

 of the original French edition, where he speaks of "les Branchs swamps, 

 marais longs et etroits, qui traversent dans toutes sortes de directions les 

 Pinieres, Pines barrens.") 



2 The word "swamp" is rather loosely defined in the dictionaries. But 

 throughout south Georgia it almost invariably means a wet place full of 

 trees. For the treeless wet places, sometimes called swamps in the North,we 

 already have such words as "marsh," "bog, " and "meadow, " so there is 

 no good reason why the definition of "swamp" should not be restricted 

 as here indicated. It should be borne in mind that swamps are much 

 more abundant in the coastal plain than in any other part of the United 

 States, so the natives of that part of the country are in a much better 

 position to know exactly what a swamp is than are those who live else- 

 where. 



3 A word of local application, doubtless a corruption of "drain," but 

 not exactly synonymous with it.. 



