298 E. A. Smith—Geology of Florida. 
feature are characteristic of the Florida landscape. 
hese being all due to the same cause, viz., the formation of 
subterranean caverns and the sinking in of superincumbent 
strata, the same depression may at one time be a mere lime- 
i ”'as the larger sunken areas—destitute of 
water in the depression. A good example in poimt 18 
Payne’s prairie near Gainesville, which for many years was 4 
widely-known pasture ground, to which thousands of cattle 
were driven from long distances. A small creek flowed 
through this basin, disappearing near its northern edge into an 
underground channel. During the great storm of 1871 this 
outlet was closed, and the “prairie” has become a lake several 
miles wide and from fifteen to twenty feet deep. As a matter 
of course, these phenomena are not confined to any particular 
limestone, and the occurrence of a Miocene limestone forming 
the basin of Rock Spring in Orange County, is noted below ; 
still, from specimens collected by me at points widely distant 
from each other, from the observations of others as quoted 
above, and from evidence derived from other sources, 1 am 
brought to the conclusion that almost the whole State © 
Florida, from the Perdido River on the west, eastward and 
peninsula, certainly as far south as the latitude of — Bay, 
pr ] or, has 
