294 
FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY—THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 
FOSSIL PEAT. 
Peat has doubtless been forming in-some parts of the world 
almost ever since vegetable life began, a period presumably of many 
millions of years. The peat of the Carboniferous period is now 
our anthracite and bituminous coal, a material without which the 
stupendous industrial developments of the past hundred years would 
have been impossible. Smaller amounts of true coal are also found 
in Triassic and Cretaceous.strata. Next in importance of the pre¬ 
historic peat deposits is the lignite of the Tertiary period, a sort 
of imperfect coal whch is used for fuel, etc., in many parts of the 
world where it is more easily obtained than real coal. All the 
rocks in Florida which have been reached by artesian borings are 
of later formations than the so-called Lignitic, and all the fossil or 
buried peat which is known in this State, with one or two unimport¬ 
ant or little-understood exceptions, is comparatively recent, prob¬ 
ably not older than Pliocene. 
Fig. 29.—Ledge of black hardpan on shore of bay about a mile west 
of Apalachicola, Franklin County. April 24, 1910. 
As long ago as 1827 Col. J. L. Williams noted the occurrence 
of a stratum of peat-like substance, containing cypress and cedar 
stumps, a short distance below the surface sands on the peninsula 
between Pensacola Bay and Santa Rosa Sound.* Well-clrillers in 
various parts of Florida and elsewhere in the coastal plain fre¬ 
quently report finding logs buried at various depths, which prob- 
* See Smith, Tenth Census U. S. 6:223. 1884. 
