PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT. 
261 
STAGNANT WATER. 
Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as stagnant water in 
Florida, for the water in the ground is slowly but constantly cir¬ 
culating, and that in ponds and lakes of course still more so. But 
the term stagnant is here applied 1 to all water (not already provided 
for in the foregoing pages) which has no perceptible current; and 
this includes all the lakes, even those which are parts of the Ockla- 
waha and St. Johns River systems and have considerable streams 
issuing from them. 
Lakes and ponds may be either evanescent (intermittent) or 
permanent. The most conspicuous examples of the former type 
are the large shallow lakes of the Middle Florida hammock belt. 
Most of these are flat-bottomed, with sink-holes at or near their 
edges which keep them drained most of the time.* Even where 
there are no well-defined sinks the shallowness of such lakes permits 
them to dry out between rainy seasons. All such places have 
been favorite pastures for cattle ever since the country was first 
settled, and this kind of treatment has brought in so many weeds 
(especially dog-fennel, Eupatorium capillifolium , and a grass, An- 
astrophus paspaloides) and damaged the original vegetation so much 
that it would be a very difficult matter to reconstruct it now. 
Some of these shallow lakes, or prairies as the driest ones are 
called, contain small saucer-like depressions a foot or more below 
the general surface, and these may retain water long enough to 
allow some peat to form, as already stated in the description of the 
Middle Florida hammock belt. Some small lakes and ponds with 
concave bottoms, mostly in this same hammock belt or in the lime- 
sink region, also contain a little peat, but it is usually very shallow 
and mixed with a good deal of sand. 
In many places on the peninsula, especially in flat pine woods 
where limestone is near the surface, from about Sumter County 
southward, there are prairies not connected with sinks or streams, 
varying in size from a few acres to several thousand acres. These 
are nearly flat, depressed a few inches below the surrounding pine 
woods, and flooded in the wet season. The smaller ones are com¬ 
monly circular or nearly so. These prairies are very characteristic 
of South Florida, and probably have no counterpart anywhere 
else. Except for the Everglades, which might be regarded as a 
very large prairie (and will be described farther on), they contain 
little or no peat; and they are scattered over such a wide territory. 
*This type of lake basin has been pretty fully discussed by Dr. Sellards in 
a preceding paper of this volume (pages 43-75) 
