21 
largely oak and hickory. At high water mark this bluff forms 
the immediate bank of the river itself, but as the water recedes 
a sloping flat is uncovered, sometimes buried to a little depth in 
sand, but with clay beneath. This flat widens, here and there, 
into a boggy or somewhat swampy, belt or patch, thickly over- 
grown wlth underbrush and coarse flowering plants. The river 
runs,in the Havana district, much nearer this bank than the oppo- 
site one, so that few of the bottom-land lakes lie between it and 
the sandy bluff. Where this sand rests on the clay, multitudes 
of springs ooze forth, forming trickling rivulets, which frequently 
unite before they reach the river in streams a few feet across. 
This water is of surface origin, being practically the leachings 
of the sand bed mentioned. It is remarkably pure, cool, and 
abundant, entirely free from organic matter, and scarcely at all 
liable to malarial contamination. 
The opposite bank of the river is ordinarily a flat slope of 
black woodland soil, making, when moist, a treacherous mud, and 
springing up, when laid bare, with a dense growth of weeds and 
grass. This bank is subject to overflow commonly twice a year, 
in late winter or early spring and again in June. During these 
periods of high water all the bottom-land lakes are of course 
submerged, becoming distinguished again from the river itself 
only as the waters recede—perhaps after an interval of several 
weeks. Most of these lakes are either abandoned portions of 
old beds of the river more or less completely cut off from the 
present channel by silting up at either end, or they are similar 
portions of old beds of tributary streams. 
Quiver Lake, in which the headquarters boat was placed, is 
such a portion of the river bed. It varies in length (when the 
water is low enough to define it clearly) from one and a half to 
two and a half miles, and has a usual width of about five hun- 
dred feet at low water mark. It les nearly parallel with the 
main river, into which it opens, evenin the lowest stage of water, 
at its lower or southern end, by about half its greatest width. 
At its upper end it receives Quiver Creek, a stream some twenty 
to thirty feet across, which comes down for several miles across 
the sandy plateau, receiving some distance above its mouth the 
drainage of a region formerly filled with swamps. This lake 
lies at the foot of the sandy bluff, and is separated from the 
river on the west by a narrow tongue of low black land, either 
