PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT. 
225 
Bradford and Alachua Counties. The western edge of the region is 
about 200 feet above sea-level (and everywhere higher than the 
hammock belt which borders it), and along the eastern edge of 
Baker and Bradford Counties there is a similar elevation along 
a remarkable topographic feature which has never yet been ex¬ 
plained, known locally as Trail Ridge.* About a dozen miles 
east of this, and parallel to it, there appears to be a smaller ridge, 
which is not easily detected without the aid of surveying instru¬ 
ments, but is pronounced enough to send the St. Marys River 
about 30 miles to the northward before it cuts through and takes 
a direct course for the coast. 
The soil of the East Florida flatwoods is nearly everywhere 
from one to several feet of sand, resting on clay. In nearly all 
the cuts through Trail Ridge, however, both in Georgia and Flor¬ 
ida, can be seen immediately under the sand a blackish hardpan 
much like that described above as occurring near Apalachicola. 
And east of the small ridge just mentioned many of the creeks must 
have cut their channels down through the clay, if the occurrence of 
lime-loving plants is any indication. Limestone or shell marl is 
said to be exposed in a few places along the St. Johns River and 
some of its larger tributaries in this region. 
The most conspicuous features of the vegetation in these flat- 
woods, as in most others in Florida, are long-leaf pine and saw- 
palmetto. From nearly every point can also be seen pond cypress 
and slash pine in the cypress ponds, and sweet gum and black 
gum in swamps. 
The cypress ponds contain no appreciable quantities of peat, for 
the reasons previously given; but the St. Johns River is an estuary 
for its whole course through this region, and besides it is never 
muddy; consequently there are some important peat deposits along 
it and some of the connecting waters. As this river is at the same 
time an important highway of commerce, conditions are very fav¬ 
orable to the economic development of peat along it, which has al¬ 
ready been worked in at least three different counties. Some of 
these workable deposits will be described in detail in a subsequent 
chapter, and analyses will be found farther on, under localities 6 
and 8, and miscellaneous Nos. 2 to 5. 
*For a map and description of part of this ridge see Popular Science Month¬ 
ly 74: 601-604. “June” (really published in May) 1909. 
G15 
