226 
FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
EAST COAST STRIP. 
(PLATES I3.3, I 4 .I, 14 . 2 , I 7 .I, FIG. 25) 
From the northern boundary of the State to Cape Florida, 
a distance of over 350 miles, the east coast of Florida slopes off 
rapidly into the Atlantic Ocean, and the waves beat upon it with 
full force, throwing up barrier beaches in the manner common to 
most wave-washed sandy coasts. The sand has been further 
shifted by the wind and piled up into dunes, and the coast seems to 
have slowly risen or fallen, or both, for a distance of several or 
many feet vertically, in the last few thousand years. The result 
of these operations of Nature on our coast is in general a remark¬ 
ably smooth and straight strip of beach and active dunes, averag¬ 
ing perhaps a mile in width, and back of that a lagoon about twice 
as wide, salt in some places and nearly fresh in others (according 
to the distance from the nearest inlet, etc.), and sometimes filled 
with marsh. Next to that is often a line of old stationary dunes 
with sand almost as white as snow, sometimes resting directly on the 
mainland and sometimes separated from it by a narrow lagoon of 
fresh water, or a fresh marsh. Then begin the flat woods. 
Where the water of these lagoons is fresh enough, conditions 
are favorable for the formation of peat, for such places, like 
estuaries, are obviously not subject to much disturbance by wind, 
tides and floods. Although I have not personally examined this re¬ 
gion as carefully as I have some of the others, I am assured by Mr. 
Robert Ranson, who has been studying Florida peat for a dozen 
years or more, that there are large quantities of good peat along the 
east coast. 
SOUTH FLORIDA FLATWOODS. 
(PLATES 11.2, 13.1, I3.2, FIG. 2l) 
Three of the regions already described, namely, the lime-sink 
region, the lake region, and the East Florida flatwoods, if traced 
southward beyond the middle of the peninsula, seemi to pass by 
imperceptible gradations ihto a region but slightly elevated above 
the sea, and consequently very flat, which may be called for con¬ 
venience the South Florida flatwoods. Like the other divisions 
of the state, it is not altogether homogeneous. Some parts are 
more calcareous than others, some have more streams than lakes, 
and some more lakes than streams; and some are well wooded and 
some are treeless. But the facilities for traveling through this 
vast thinly settled region are as yet so limited that it is out of the 
question to attempt to subdivide it geographically at present. 
