PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT. 
241 
SWAMP WATER. 
r 
The water of most streams, lakes, ponds, swamps and fresh 
marshes in Florida, as in the coastal plain generally (and to a con¬ 
siderable extent in the glaciated region as well), contains organic 
matter both in suspension and solution, which gives it a brownish 
color. Such water in a glass looks like very weak coffee, or in 
a deep stream or lake, especially if the bottom is dark, like strong 
coffee, or it may even be compared in blackness to ink. Some of 
the dissolved organic matter is of the nature of vegetable acids, 
and this kind of water always has an acid reaction, and it is often 
perceptibly sour to the taste. 
SWAMP WATER ON CALCAREOUS SOIL. 
CREEK SWAMPS, ETC. 
Although most coffee-colored streams flow over beds of sand, 
there are many places in Florida where such streams have limestone 
or marl near enough to the surface to have a decided effect on the 
vegetation without the limestone itself being visible. Such places 
are usually in small streams with shallow swamps, and are of no im¬ 
portance as sources of peat, but they are of scientific interest because 
to any one not a botanist they would hardly seem to differ from 
strictly non-calcareous swamps. Moreover, they might be of some 
assistance to a geologist in helping him to locate beds of limestone 
or marl in regions where outcrops are scarce, as in the East Florida 
flatwoods. 
These swamps with invisible calcareous foundations are rather 
common within a few miles of the St. Johns River and southwest 
of Kissimmee, where I have seen many of them while traveling by 
rail, but I have been in very few of them. The following list is 
made up from observations in Jefferson, Duval and Clay Counties, 
and about the head-waters of Peace River in Polk County. 
TREES 
Taxodium distichum (cypress) 
Acer rubrum (maple) 
Fraxinus profunda? (ash) 
Nyssa biflora (black gum) 
Ilex Cassine (swamp holly) 
Liquidambar Styraciflua (sweet gum) 
Quercus sp. (similar to Q nigra. 
but with narrower leaves) 
Quercus nigra (water oak) 
Persea pubescens? 
Persea Borbcnia (red bay) 
Fraxinus Caroliniana (ash) 
Juniperus Virginiana (cedar) 
Pinus Taeda (short-leaf pine) 
Ulmus Americana? (elm) 
Car pinus Caroliniana (ironwood) 
