Florida of to-day

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CONTENT

CHAPTER
I. HISTORY .
Discoveries
Settlement
Cession to Great Britain .
Retrocession to Spain.
Cession to the United States
Territory of Florida .
Seminole Wars .
State of Florida. .
Secession .
Reconstruction .
Restoration
II. EOGAPHY .
III. CLIATE .
Temperature .
Humidity. .
IV. DvIoNs .
First, North Florida .
Second, Semi-tropical Florida
Third, Subtropial Florida .
V. HCALH .
Malaria .
STornadoes. .
VI. GEOLOGY .
Industrial Feature .
Mineral Waters.

PAGe
. 7
. 7-
. 12/
S15
. 17
. 17
. 17
. 18
. 25
S25
. 26
. 26
28
* 33
. 83
. 85 -
S41
S42
S43
S43
S52
. 52
. 58
. 59
. 68
. 67

k~3~e~J3

E~h)

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

Soils

Drainage
VII. TRAVEL

Ocean Routes
Overland Routes

Jacksonville

From Jacksonville

Indian River
Lake Worth

PAGE
. 68
. 69
. 72

. 76
80
S88
. 90

Biscayne Bay .
Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.
Key West. .
Cape-Sable.
Tampa .
Tallahassee .

Cedar Keys
Pensacola .

Appalachicola.
Wakulla Springs
Silver Spring
The Ocklawaha River.
The Suwannee River .
The Caloosahatchee River
The Homosaess River

100
100

Mounds

VIII. POPULATION
Peoples
Old Residents

Northern and Foreign Immigrants
Negroes
Indians

IX. EDUCATION .
X. PRODUCTIONS
Oranges
Lemons

.113
S117

.180

Limes
Other Citrus Fruits

.94
S94

. 97

CONTENTS.

CHAPTna

Cooanuts 0
Pineapples.
Bananas

PAGE
141
144

Pears

Grapes and Wine
Grand Possibilities
Yet other Fruits.

Tobacco
Cotton

.151
.152
154
164

.182

186
.192
.193
194

Lumber
Rice
Sugar.
Grains

Cattle

.196
196

Goats
Other Stock

Poultry
Gardening.
Opium
Honey
Out of the. Waters

198
.199
.203
204
.205

XI. SPORTING
Fishing
Hunting
XII. PESTS. .

Insects

S209

.22
225
226

Reptiles
Land.Sharks

APPENDIX:

Railway Routes
River Routes
List of Hotels

229
231
236

MAPS

AND

ILLU

STATION

PAGE
Facing title

Map of Florida
Map of Divisions
The Banana .
Street Scene in Jacksonville
Street in St. Augustine .
Ponce de Leon Hotel
Looking across Indian River.
A Hammock .
A Scene on the Ocklawaha River

Orange.
Orange-Tres.
Lemo0 ,.
Lime-Tree
Cocoanut-Grove

The Banana and the Pineapple
Guava .

Mango.
The Date-Palm

.187

.156

S165
.188

A Cypress-Shingle Yard
A Hunter's Camp

S92

THE

FLORIDA

OF

TO

-DAY

HISTORY.

early

history

Florida-its

discoveries,

conquests, reconquests, cessions, and retrocession-is
as varied and spirited as a romance.
Dimoverie--It is agreed generally among the
historians that Ponce de Leon was the first of the

several discoverers.

This romantic and enterprising

adventurer, hunting the phantasmal Isle of Bimini
-one writer calls it Boiaca-with its precious fount-
sin of youth, failed indeed to find that, but reached
the coast of Florida just north of where St. Augus-
tine now is, on Easter-Sunday, the 27th of March,

1512.

He landed the 2d of April, and named the

country, known to the Indians as Cantio, FLOmIA,
from Pascna Florida, the day of his discovery. Mr.
Fairbanks, however, states that the discovery was

made on Palm-Sunday.

Ponce de Leon did little

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA .

else on that occasion than to land, erect banners, and

baptize the fair land of flowers.

Florida was next discovered by Miruelo in 1516.
He got, it is said, some pieces of gold from the na-
tives, which, on his return to Cuba, the general base
of operations for the Spaniards at that early date,
created great excitement among the gold-hungry ad-
venturers of that day.
The next year, 1517, De Cordova led an expedi-

tion of Spaniards to the new El Dorado

but he was

speedily driven off, and returned to Cuba to die of
his wounds.
The same year Alaminos came with three ships,
landed twice, found no gold, and was soon driven
away.
In 1521 Ponce de Leon made another invasion

of Florida

but he found no gold, was baffled and

wounded, and returned to Cuba to die, as De Cor-
dova had done.

Seven years later

the Spanish fortune-hunters

began

to discover and

to invade Florida on

western side.

De Narvaez, in April, 1528, led an

expedition of about four hundred men and

eighty

horses,

which

landed

in Clear

Water

landed with

three

hundred

men

and the

horses,

and marched northward along the Gulf-shore, hav-

HISTORY.

ing ordered his vessels to coast along apace with

his marching troops.

ure.

The arrangement was a fail-

The ships lost sight of the troops, and, baffled

in every effort to find them, months afterward re-

turned to Cuba.

The three hundred troops were

all, in one way or another, destroyed, except four.

These four remained seven

years

in the El Do-

rado, became

"medicine-men" among the Indians,

finally worked

their

back,

crossing

Mississippi

River,

to the

Spanish

settlements in

Mexico.

One of these, Cabega de Vaca-the veri-

table discoverer of the Mississippi River-wrote an

account of these stirring events.

While the ships

were yet lying at Clear Water, a Spaniard, Juan de
Ortiz, rashly ventured ashore, and was left there a
prisoner among the Indians, known then as Mar-

annes.

He remained there eleven years-until the

next discoverer came along-and had a sort of John
Smith experience with a Floridian Pocahontas and

Powhatan.

The name of the interesting heroine of

adventure seems

to have

perished,

Powhatan was named Hirrihiua.

1539

Soto,

with a thousand

men

three hundred and fifty horses, landed in what is

now

Santo.

Tampa

Upon

which

landing,

christened

he found

Espiritu

De Ortiz, men-

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

tioned
turned

above,

acted as his guide

knew

almost

nothing

but, as it

about

country.

De Soto was in quest of reported "great

store of crystal, gold,

and rubies, and diamonds,

that lay somewhere to the northward.

He sent his

vessels home, and set out overland to the region of

treasures,

wherever

might

reached

Chicora, or Chicola-South Carolina, perhaps-then
turned westward, and passed beyond the Mississippi
River, which had been discovered years before, and

named Rio Grande, by De Vaca.

De Soto returned

to that river, died there, and was buried beneath its

paternal waters.

Just three hundred and eleven of

his thousand men finally reached Mexico.

In 1545 a treasure-ship

sailing from Mexico for

Spain, was wrecked on the eastern coast of Florida,
and about two hundred persons escaped to the land,
and thus unwittingly discovered Florida again. The

most of these were

murdered by the gentle Stoics

of the woods, and the rest were enslaved.

About

twenty years later one of

these

slaves

made

way to

Laudonniere's settlement, at the mouth of

the St. John's River, and a few others reached the
colony of Menendez at St. Augustine.

In 1549 four

Franciscan friars landed at Tampa

Bay, with the idea of evangelizing the stoical abo-

HtISTORY.

rigines, but the noble savages tomahawked three of

them, and thus convinced the fourth

brother that

that kind of a conquest of Florida was impractica-
ble-at that time.

years later, De Luna

set out from

Vera

Cruz with fifteen hundred adventurers and a large

number of zealous priests

the former to pick up

fortunes, and

latter

to preach

gospel of

peace to the cut-throat

barbarians.

He landed at

Pensacola,

called

Santa

Maria,

pitched a camp

there, marched into

the interior,

accomplished the loss of a good many men, and was
ordered home.

In 1562 Ribault came from France

vessels and a colony of Huguenots, and made land

near St. Augustine

thence coasted northward, dis-

covered the St. John's River, which he christened
the May, and erected a monument of stone engraved

with the arms of France.

He soon re-embarked,

and proceeded to make a settlement at Port Royal,
South Carolina.
In 1564 Laudonni6re brought a still larger col-
ony of Huguenots, landed where St. Augustine now
stands, but promptly re-embarked and sailed to St.
John's Bluff, and there built Fort Caroline. This
colony struggled on for a year, and, becoming dis-

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY.

heartened,

were

preparing

to return

-to France,

when, in August, 1565, Ribault arrived with about

six hundred and fifty other

Huguenots, some hav-

ing families.

Settlement.-The same year brought Menendez,

who arrived in July, 1565, at St. Augustine.

Upon

his arrival he heard of Ribault and his Huguenots
at Fort Caroline, and promptly pursued his vessels,

but without success.

He then returned to St. Au-

gustine, and built solid fortifications.

Ribault ral-

quickly,

set out to capture

Menendez

before

he could

complete

defenses

French were driven south, and finally wrecked near

Matanzas.

Menendez

was equal

to the

occasion,

and, taking advantage of the situation, attacked and

captured Fort Caroline.

He hanged a number of

his French

prisoners

upon trees, and put this in-

scription

over

their

hanging

bodies

" Non

Francesee, sino

Luteranos.

" The

victor re-

christened the fort San Mateo, returned to St. Au-

gustine, there first heard of

Ribault's

shipwreck,

hastened

down

to Matanzas

Inlet,

captured

bault's straggling

party, and,

under the banner of

the cross, butchered them to a man.
This closed the efforts of the French to hold a
colony in Florida proper.

HISTOE Y

Menendez held his post at St. Augustine, and
this doubtless was the first permanent settlement of
Europeans in the United States.
In 1567 a gallant Frenchman, De Gourgues, got
up an expedition to avenge the brutal massacre and
insult of his compatriots by the Spaniards at Fort

Caroline.

With

three

small

vessels

a hun-

and eighty-four, men

came

to Florida,

adroitly secured the co-operation of the natives, and
with these combined forces he surprised Fort San

Mateo-the

old Fort Caroline-and

captured the

entire garrison.

He turned the merciful aborigines

in upon the Spaniards, and a few survived.

These

De Gourgues hanged upon the same trees that Me-

nendez

for the

Huguenots,

on a

pine board over the corpses he .wrote,

"I do this,

not as to Spaniards, nor as to outcasts, but as to

traitors, thieves, and murderers."

The avengement

was complete.

Augustine,

meanwhile,

was held

continu-

ously

by the

Spaniards

but holding

was about

all they

except

fighting

Indians.

1647

was twice

Francis

a freebooting

contained
captured

Drake, v
expedition

three

hundred

burned

families.

down-once

was returning

in the

Spanish

from
Main,

FLORIDA

and once, in

OF TO-DA Y.

1665, by Captain John Davis, a bue-

cancer.
Spain claimed that Florida embraced all the ter-

ritory as far north as

Virginia and westward to the

Mississippi

River-in

those

early

Spanish

known as the Rio Grande.

Accordingly, when the

English and Scotch began to colonize the Carolinas,
the Spaniards began to fight them as intruders; and
the Indians joined whichever side promised them

the most blood.

Under this feeling, in

1676, the

Spaniards sent a force to wipe out the English set-
tlement at Charles Town, on the Ashley River; but

the expedition failed utterly.

Again, in 1678, an-

other Spanish force was sent for the same purpose;
and this one murdered many of the English colo-
nists, pillaged a few plantations, and did a deal of
petty damage.

In 1696 the Spaniards, under

D'Arriola, made a

settlement

where

Pensacola

where

Barrancas now stands, they built, their Fort Carlos,
a church, and some dwellings.

In 1702 the English Governor Moore, of

South

Carolina, captured and burned St. Augustine, but

failed to reduce the fort

and in 1703 he laid waste

Indian

towns in Middle Florida

which

were

under Spanish protection, so called.

HISTORY.

The Pensacola settlement was destroyed by the

French in 1718

and the Spaniards, in 1722, built

on Santa

Rosa

Island,

where

Pickens now

stands, and rebuilt Pensacola.
These alternations of colonizing, building, capt-
uring, rescuing, burning, rebuilding, returning, and

so on,

were

between

the Spaniards and

French in animated style for several years.

Indeed,

nothing else seems to have received any attention.
The banner of the cross of peace waved over the

land, and the tomahawk

kept the soil moist with

blood.
St. Marks was settled by the Spaniards in 1718.
Spanish Florida had three aggressive and troub-
lesome enemies-the English in Carolina and Geor-
gia on the north, the French in Louisiana on the

west,
them.

aboriginal

tomahawks

around

In 1713 the English

Governor Oglethorpe,

Georgia, invaded Florida, and offered battle under

walls

Augustine

Spanish

adlantado Montiano, declined to go out, and Ogle-

thorpe declined to go in--so

there

was but little

bloodshed.
Ceion to Great Britain--The treaty of peace of
1748 between Great Britain and Spain closed these
--^*

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

alternating

forays

and filibustering.

When

treaty was broken by the war of 1762, the British
captured Havana; and in the treaty following, in
1763, Great Britain gave Cuba to Spain in exchange

for Florida.

Thus Florida became a British posses-

sion, and enjoyed a rest from Spain's magnificently
little conquests of empires that had been going on
so long.

The Spaniards, during their

two hundred and

fifty years of occupancy, had achieved little beyond

their numerous

ostentatious

conquests of nothing,

much bloodshed and brutality, and a profound igno-

rance of the country and its resources.

At the date

of the cession the European population of the terri-

tory was about six thousand five hundred

and of

these many left the country at the transfer.
The first British Governor, James Grant, took

steps

promptly

to develop

country.

Roads

were c
offered

colonization

for indigo

encouraged,

and other

bounties

productions.

Turnbull and Sir William Duncan brought into the

territory

about

fifteen

hundred

Minorcans

Greeks, and made a settlement near New Smyrna,
in Volnsia County.
Florida took no part in the war of secession in
1776 known as the American Revolution, and was

HISTORY. 17

a place of refuge for thousands of loyalists from the
battling States, as it was later for fugitive slaves
from the adjacent States.
Upon the breaking out of war between Great
Britain and Spain in 1779, the Spanish Governor of
Louisiana invaded Florida and captured Pensacola
in 1781.
Retrooeuion to Spain.-In 1783, upon the close
of the war, Great Britain exchanged Florida for the
Bahama Islands, owned by Spain, and thus Florida
returned to Spanish rule. The British settlers
promptly moved out, and Spanish lethargy settled
over the country again.
In 1814, during the late war, the. British sent
a feet to Pensacola and captured the forts there;
and General Jackson was sent to oust them. He
stormed the forts and destroyed them. In 1818
General Jackson again invaded Florida, in order to
check and chastise the Seminoles.
Ceasion to the United State--In 1819 a treaty
between Spain and the United States was concluded,
and ratified in 1821, by which Florida was ceded to
the latter power.
Territory f Florid--In 1822 the Congress of
the United States established the Territory of Flor-
ida, with its capital at an old Indian settlement or
f a

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

camp called Tallahassee, although the first Legisla-
tive Council met at Pensacola, and the second at St.
Augustine.

The Territorial Governors,

with the beginnings

of their
William

terms,

were

P. Duval,

: Andrew

John

Jackson,
W. Eaton,

1821
1834

R. K.
R.K.

Call, 1835

1840

Robert

Raymond Reed, 1839

John Branch, 1844.

Seminole Wara-It was mainly during the terri-

trial period

that the worst of

the Seminole wars

occurred.

These

wars

were

full of

stirring

tragic events, and but li
bloody monotony. A de
wholly unnecessary here.

little variety relieved their
tailed account of them is
Speaking of the earlier

Indian conflicts at the beginning of the eighteenth
century-up to about 1720-Mr. Fairbanks makes

this comparison

"In every

New England -house-

hold the story of the sufferings of the Williams fam-

of the Dustins, and

of Miss McCrea, excited

the most tender emotions of pity.

The history of

the Southern colonies presents hundreds of such in-

stances."

now.

If it was hundreds then, it is thousands

It is within reason to say that the history of

Florida itself, as a

Territory and as a State-1821

to 1860, say-can give a score of such tragedies for
every one so graphically told in the school-books of

HISTORY.

all the New

England

States.

But these have not

yet been celebrated in song and story.

Many have

not been written at all, and are thus far recorded
only in the hearts and memories of this silent South-
ern people.
Peace with these Indians is perhaps an impossi-

ability, and had never really existed

but the most

important outbreak, known as the Seminole War, be-

Dade

massacre in South Florida in

1835, and closed with the so-called treaty of 1842.
But there has been much fierce fighting outside of

that period both before and after.

acre

The word mae-

fitly describes the destruction of Major Dade's

battalion in Sumter County.

After the

last man

had fallen, Mr. Fairbanks states, the Indians then

rushed into

breastwork,

headed

a heavy

painted savage, who, believing that all were dead,

made a speech to the Indians.

They then stripped

off the accoutrements of the soldiers and took their

arms,

without offering any indignity, and

in a body."

The story

retired

closes with these words

"Soon after the Indians had left, about fifty ne-
groes galloped up on horseback and alighted, and

at once commenced a horrible

butchery.

poor fellow on the ground showed signs of life, the

negroes stabbed and tomahawked him.

Lieutenant

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

Basinger,

being still alive, started

up and begged

the wretches to spare his life; they mocked at his
prayers, while they mangled him with their hatch-

ets until he was relieved by death.

After stripping

the dead, the negroes shot the oxen and burned the

gun-carriages.

man,

something

like a

miracle, escaped to tell the story.
There have been several causes assigned for the
Indian's hostility to the white man-encroachments
of the whites, individual wrongs to property, espe-

cially

cattle,

but the

great

underlying and

essential cauea causans has been the innate blood-

thirst of the savages.

The killing is sweet to them.

This has show itself ever since the Easter-Sunday
in 1512 when De Leon, the fountain-hunter, first
sighted' the blooming shores of Cautio.
During these wars the savages have times and
again made agreements and treaties so called, only
to gain time or to put the whites off their guard, and
then resume hostilities whenever and wherever they

could find a white throat convenient to cut.
yet the whites trusted them again and again.

ernor

And
Gov-

Reed, in 1839, in his message to the Legisla-

ture, said: The close of the fifth year will find us
struggling in a contest remarkable for magnanimity,

forbearance,

credulity

on the one

HISTORY.

ferocity

and bad

faith

the other.

waging war with beasts of prey.

The tactics that

belong

to civilized

nations

are but shackles and

fetters in its prosecution.

We must fight fire with

fire."
Gallant officers with brave soldiers were sent to
quell the brutal work of Indian murder and pillage

-Jackson,

Clinch,

Dade, Macomb,

Belknap, and

others-and all were baffled.

Some of them fought

well, and had edifying talks, and secured excellent
treaties; but the Seminole was master of the situa-

practically,

until

General

Worth

went

1841.

Our forces

captured

Coacoochee, a

chief,

.and several of his braves, and they were en route

for the
Orleans
Tampa.

West,

when General

and had

The interview

Coacoochee took

party

Worth sent to New

returned

between

place on a

to him

the general

transport

in Tampa

on the morning of the 4th of

July,

1841.

general

chief

and his staff
companions

were
came

seated,
forward

and the
heavily

ironed, and sat down on the deck.

General Worth

advanced, and, taking the chief by the hand, said

to him

"Coacoochee, I take you by the hand as a

warrior, a brave man.

You have fought long, and

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY.

with a true and strong heart, for your country.

take your hand with feelings of pride.

You love

your country as

we do.

Coacoochee, I am your

friend
What

so is your Great

to you is true.

Father at

Washington.

My tongue is not

forked like a snake's.

My word is for the happi-

ness of

the red man.

are a great

warrior.

The Indians throughout the country look to you as

a leader

by your counsels they have been governed.

This war has lasted five years.
been shed-much innocent blood.

Much blood has
You have made

your hands and the ground red with the blood of

women and
You are th

children.

e man

to do it;

war must now

must and

accomplish it.

I sent for you, that, through the

exertions

yourself

your men,

might

induce your entire band to emigrate.

I wish you

to state how many days it will require to effect an

interview

Indians in

woods.

can select three or five of these men to carry your

Name the time-it shall be granted;

but I

tell you, as I wish your relatives and friends told,
that, unless they fulfill your demands, yourself and
these warriors now seated before us shall be hung

to the

yards of

this vessel

when the sun sets on

the day appointed, with the irons upon your hands

HISTORY K

and feet

I tell you this, that we may well under-

stand each other.

do not wish to frighten you,

you are too brave a man for that
I mean, and I will do it. It is f
the white and the red man. Th

; but I say what
or the benefit of
e war must end,

and you must end it!"

wily chief made a diplomatic reply,

evidently counted on making his escape.

ing, he said

Conclud-

"I wish now to have my band around

me and go to Arkansas.

You say I must end the

Look

at these

irons

Can I

warriors?

Coacoochee chained

do not ask

me to see them.

I never wish to tread upon my

unless

unchained,

am free.

they will

can go

follow

to them

me in

not obey me when

talk to them in

irons.
afraid.

They

will. say

heart

is weak,

Could I go free, they will surrender and

emigrate."

General Worth knew his man.

He told him

that he could not go free, and reminded him that

he had not proposed anything of

the kind.

closed by saying: "I say to you again, and for the
last time, that unless the band acquiesce promptly

in your wishes, to your

last wish, the sun, as it

down

on the

appointed

their

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

appearance, will shine upon the bodies of each of
you hanging in the wind."

Coacoochee

understood

aright this time.

accepted the inevitable.

selected

five of

men to carry his talk to his band in the swamps.
The five went accordingly, and they returned with
the entire band of about two hundred Coacoochean

Seminoles.

They all went West.

This policy

of General Worth's

availed some-

thing.

was arrested

midway

by another

treaty, by the provisions of which nearly three hun-
dred savages are yet allowed to linger in Florida-
almost powerless for serious ill, but a nuisance and

annoyance,

without any compensating advantage.

heroes, so called,

of this mongrel

counting back a hundred years or so, are many-
Secoffee, Pascoffer, Osceola (As-se-seha-bo-lar, Black

Drink),

Alligator,

Jumper,

Black

Micco,

Dirt,

Jones,

Arpeika,

Micanopy,

Chitto-Tustenug-

Coacoochee

or Wild

Emathla,

Otulkee,

Halleck-Tustenuggee, Aleck Hajo, Tiger-Tail,

lahassee, Billy

Bowlegs, Hospetarkee, and so on to

a hundred,

thing.
talkative

and all distinguished

One is crafty and silent

some-

another, bold and

another, vigilant and far-seeing

another,

ambitious and boastful

another, skillful and busy;

t

HISTORY.

another,

vulpine

another, feline

another, snaky;

another,

tigery-but

all blood-hungry

revengeful.
These Seminole wars have cost perhaps twenty

million dollars, and

over thirty

thousand

soldiers

have seen service in them, of whom about fifteen
hundred lost their lives.

In November, 1843,
the whole number of

General Worth

Indians

estimated

in Florida as

warriors,

sukies, thirty-three:

Seminoles,
Creeks, ten

forty-two

Micco-

and Tallahassees,

ten; making ninety-four warriors;

and, including

women and children, three hundred in all.

These

were

under

Assinwar

Holatter

Micco

and Otulko-Thlocko

as head-chief,
as sub-chiefs.

1845 Captain Sprague estimated
three hundred and sixty. To-d

the aggregate at
ay, they are reck-

oned to be two hundred and sixty-nine--statement

given

elsewhere-so that

the race is not self-sus-

training.

state

of Florida.-Florida

State and admitted into the

was organized
Union in 1845.

as a

The State Governors prior to the war of seces-

sion were:

W. D. Moseley

Thomas Brown,

James

Broome,

1852

Madison

Perry,

John Milton, 1860.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY.

Secemion.-An ordinance of secession from the
Federal Union was passed by a State Convention on

the 10th

of January,

and the State

joined

the Confederate

States in

Sthe struggle for State

sovereignty

in the

war of

secession,

bearing

part bravely and well.

At the close

war a State

Convention

repealed the ordinance of secession.

In 1865

there

were

three Governors-A. K.

Allison, acting
tary Governor

Governor;
and David

William

Marvin

mili-

Walker, elected

the people, served until 1868, when reconstruction,

so called,

was regularly ushered in.

Reconstruction.

- Under

a new

Constitution,

adopted

in 1868, a

new

line of Governors

inaugurated.

Beginning with that date, the follow-

been

Harrison Reed,

Governors,

1868

0. B.

their

Hart,

dates:
M. L.

Stears, 1873

George F. Drew, 1877

William D.

Bloxham, 1881; Edward A. Perry, 1

Restoration.-

election

Governor

Drew

in 1877 marks the new era of prosperity in Florida.
From 1868 to 1877 the reconstruction regime ob-

trained.

During that period party politics seemed

to be the main pursuit of those having the State in
charge; and other industries were dwarfed by mie-

was

HISTORY.

directed legislation or overborne by onerous taxa-
tion. The upward and forward impulse given all

industrial

pursuits

the election

of Governor

Drew, in 1877,

was well sustained and increased

successively

Governors

Bloxham

Perry.

The
tional

extent

of the rebound from the reconstruc-

depression,

or rather prostration, is clearly

shown by Governor Perry in a communication of
the 30th of March, 1888. He says: "I am glad to
be able to say for my State that its agricultural
interests are marvelously improving, that the num-

ber and amount of

crops

farm mortgages

are decreasing,

and liens on

farmers are more

prosperous generally.

creasing in
is marked."

years

value, and

Their
their

lands are

general

yearly in-

advancement

The assessments for taxation for the

1870, 1879, and 1887 bear ample testimony

to the material advancement of

the State during

the period in question:

For 1870
For 1879
For 1887

* . . I
*~ ~ .5 . . . *

$29,700,022
82,794,388
86,265,662

GEOGRAPHY.

FLORIDA is the largest in area of the States east
of the Mississippi River, and it has an area of culti-
vable land greater than that of the six New Eng-
land States.

The political, judicial, and congressional

divis-

ions of Florida are not matters of special interest to
the traveling public; and, in view of the State as a
place to visit or to settle in, they are not important.

In a general

way, again, the

State is divided into

West, Middle, East, and South

but this division is

both vague and arbitrary, and comparatively mean-

ingless.

To the Northern as to the European read-

her's mind the State is pretty much a unit; and from
this misconception has arisen much of the confusion
of thought, conflicting opinions, the seesaw. of vili-

fiction and overpraise, and

the general wholesale

inaccuracy, that has been so lavishly written about
Florida for the last twenty years.
For the purposes of these pages-to give a cor-

GEOGRAPHY.

rect idea of the country in its salient and diverse
features, and to picture it as it is to-day-the sec-
tions of the State are three, which for convenience

be called

Northern

Florida,

Semi

- tropical

Florida, and Subtropical Florida.

The basis of this

division is climate; and the three Floridas will be
discussed as separate in future pages.

physical

features

State,

eventful early history and its manifold industries,

are varied and diverse.

The highest point in the

State

is Table

Mountain,

in Lake

County;

though the barometric measurements have not been
very close, a presumption is established that the sum-
mit is nearly five hundred feet above the sea-leveL

Louisiana is the only State
The highest point in the 1

with a less elevation.
United States is Mount

Whitney in California, 14,898 feet.

Florida is a land of water.

In addition to its

1,148 miles of salt-water coast, it has, scattered all

over its surface, certainly

1,200 fresh-water

lakes.

These vary in size, from Okeechobee (the word is
aid to mean Big Water), with its thousand square
iBes of area, to the picturesque little lakelet-for
t re are lakelets both large and small-with less

a hundred square feet.

These lakes and lake-

lets are nowhere stagnant and unseemly with scum

THE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

but are of waters fresh, clear, bright, smiling, and
wholesome, often good enough for general use, and

even for drinking.
pure and drinkable.

Even the Everglade waters are
This clearness and health-qual-

ity appear as well in the chalybeate and the sulphur
springs that are found in many parts of the State.
The word "spring," in this connection, has great lati-
tude of meaning; and some of the so-called springs
are very large, as Silver Spring, in Marion County,

two hundred

yards in diameter,

whose brook is a

thoroughfare for a line of steamers, and the Blue

Springs in

Volusia County,

with a

feet in diameter and forty feet deep.

basin seventy
Of this latter

a State official gives the following description: A
huge bowl, from the center of which a colu n of

blue-tinted water presses

upward

with such force

that the center of the surface is convex to the ex-
tent of perhaps ten inches, and it is impossible to
put or keep a boat on this summit, such is the force

of the hydraulic

stream

pressure

which

upward

gigantic

and laterally.

spring feeds

about fifty feet wide and of an average depth of ten
feet, with a current of about five miles an hour.
The Indian name of the St. John's River is Wee-la-

ka, meaning a chain of lakes.

The following are a

few of the largest lakes: Okeechobee,

Kissimmee,

GEOGRAPHIC

Tohopokaliga, Istokroga, Monroe, Apopka, Eustis,
George, Crescent, Orange, Miccasukee, Iamonia, De

Funiak,

Santa

Buffum.

The heights of

these

lakes

a good

Buffum,

in Polk

County,

being

138*26

above

sea-level

simmee, 59"06 feet

and Okechobee, 20-24 feet.

About

Okeechobee, and

mainly southward

it, extend the Everglades, in the counties of Dade,
Monroe, and Lee, with an aggregate area of fully

seven thousand five

hundred square miles-nearly

as large

as the Commonwealth

The Everglade

waters are, like all

Massachusetts.

waters of

Florida, pure and clear, and vary in depth from a

few inches to several feet,

rarely more

than ten.

Tall grass, as high sometimes as eight or ten feet, is

very common,

with shrubs,

all sorts of tangle and roots.

vines, trees, moss, and
Islands lie here and

there, with trees and vines on them-cypress, pine,
oaks, palmettoes, magnolias, and a score at least of

other

subtropical

trees.

infinite

variety

abound everywhere.
The immense extent of sea-shore, almost encir-

cling the State, is dotted

with islands-islands of

all sizes, from Santa Rosa Island and Key Largo,
thirty to fifty miles long, to a dot big enough only

to sun a turtle.

Beginning at the mouth of the St.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY

Mary's

River, at Fernandina,

with Amelia Island,

twenty-two miles long, on which that city stands, we
have an unbroken chain-Anastasia, opposite which
St. Augustine stands; scores of islands and islets
along Hillsborough, Halifax, and Indian Rivers; on
down to the Florida Keys, numbering hundreds, of

which

Key Largo is the largest; on

to Key West

and the

Dry Tortugas

thence

northward

up the

Gulf coast, taking in the Ten Thousand Islands on

the coast of Monroe

and so on by Charlotte Har-

Tampa Bay,

and Cedar

Keys,

to the island-

dotted coast of

Franklin County; and

on to the

largest of all, Santa Rosa Island

and finally on to

Perdido Point.
The rivers of the State are numerous, frequently
serpentine, sluggish, and shallow, but rarely if ever

stagnant.
Suwannee,

The principal streams are the St. John's,

Kissimmee,

Caloosahatchee,

Withlacoo-

chee, Apalachicola, Ocklawaha, St Mary's,

Wakulla,

Chipola,

Peace,

Manatee,

Alafia,

Homosassa,

Mark's, Miami, Ocklokonee, and Ocilla.

There are

nineteen rivers navigable by steamers, to the aggre-
gate distance of over a thousand miles.

CLIMATE.

THE climate of Florida, considered as one, is ex-

ceptional.

finest

It is, in some

in the world.

important

Dr. Baldwin,

respects,

a prominent

physician of Jacksonville, maintains that the State
occupies a most favorable position in regard to cli-

mate

for the many modifying influences in oper-

ation have produced, he shows,

" a climate that for

equability has few if any equals and no superior."

Temperature.-As

regards

temperature, contin-

ued observations in various parts of t&e State show
that it is not excessive in either direction during
the entire year, the range between winter and sum-

mer temperature being only about 20.

nual mean

is 700

of spring,

; summer,

autumn, 710

and winter, 600

SThe following

is the Weather Bureau's official statement of the

temperature

at Jacksonville,

1887

Annual mean..
Maximum.....
Minimum....
8

S...111 .. 100*8

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

This may be accepted as applicable for the northern

part of semi-trppical Florida, and approximately for

the whole orange belt.

The following table

presents results

given by

the Signal Service. Th

sumably those for Jack

of the State where 105

e figures for Florida are pre-

sonville, for there are parts

has not been felt for a hun-

years.

The figures are degrees

Fahrenheit,

and the table shows the one point of comparative

equability

PLACE.

Florida...
Louisiana.
Mississippi
Alabama .

. .. I .

**~~ *0I* *9**

West Virginia.

Georgia ...
Ohio. ...
Kansas ...
Connecticut

Oregon .....
Illinois .. ..
Nebraska.....
New York ....
Idaho........
Colorado......
Dakota.....
California.....
Montana.....

* .. a.....

* ll .. a a

Maximum.

S* a *a.. *
at.... S
a. a* a *
* **a
* a *.
aa a.. S *
* aea a.a *

Minimum.

10
0
- -05
-10
-20
-20
-25
-20
-80
-25
-35
-30
-35
-80
S-45
-45
-45
-50

Difference.

As the public mind naturally expects, and as the

California

press have demanded, a comparison of

the two States in the matter of temperature, the fol-

CL MATE.

lowing figures are given from the monthly weather

review
1885:

of the Signal-Service Bureau, for August,

In Florida.

Limona

Jacksonville ...
Sanford . .
Key West.....
Merritt's Island
St. Augustine ..

* wet......
* *111 **.**
* a .....

In California.

Fall Brook..
College City.
Murietta....
Red Bluff ..
Los Angeles
Sacramento.

* ...a. 4*1*
* ...a S*

S..... 106

For September, 18

the figures from the same

review are these:

In Florida.

In California.

Limona

Key West.....
Merritt's Island
St. Augustine ..
Jacksonville ...

* Sea..... S
*(1 *5 S*C *

Fall Brook..
Los Angeles
Murietta ....
Poway.... .

* a.. a5*e****
* I CC-* C** 9C
eet*.** C.- S

These two tables answer the question whether
California is warmer in midsummer than Florida.
Humidity.-As to the humidity about which so
much extravagant nonsence has been written, and

which

hasty

writers

pronounced

excessive

and therefore

objectionable,

Baldwin insists,

and with conclusive reasons,

that it is one of the

fortunate

favorable

features,

when

consid-

ered in the

light of science.

"Let it be remem-

THE FLORIA.-OF TO-DAY.

bered," he writes, that the term relative humidity
as used by meteorologists is not the same as absolute

humidity

"; and then proceeds to show how this is

true, in the following way: Absolute humidity de-
termines the exact amount of vapor in the air when

condensed into water

while relative humidity has

relation to the amount of vapor in the air when it

will be

condensed

after

point

saturation

is reached, and this point of saturation depends on

temperature

tension

or force

vapor

determined by the barometric pressure at the time

of taking

the observation.

point of saturation

In relative

is marked

humidity,
and the

figures in the column below 100 are the percentage
of that quantity as existing at the time under a spe-

cific degree of temperature and tension of
Therefore, the point of saturation is variable

vapor.
as, for

instance,

when

thermometer

is 500 and

barometer marks 30 inches pressure, a cubic foot of
air then contains four grains and a fraction of water

at the point of saturation, 100.

When the tempera-

ture is 750 and the barometer the same as before, a

cubic foot

of the atmosphere then

contains

grains and a fraction where the air is saturated, but

still marked

At the

temperature

of 1000

pressure as before, the cubic foot of air at the point

CLIMA TE.

of saturation will contain twenty grains and a frac-
tion. Thus we see that the amount of moisture in
the air at different temperatures varies in quantity.

Therefore, the

percentages given of 100 and the

different temperatures must also vary, so that the
same figures, although they may be correct percent-

of 100,

do not indicate

to us the absolute

amount of moisture in the atmosphere,

unless we

know the temperature which regulates each point of

saturation.
extended

Time and space will not permit a more

exposition

interesting

subject.

Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, in
an article on meteorology, says: It is not upon the
actual amount of vapor which the air contains at a
given time or place that its humidity depends; but

upon its greater or less degree of saturation.

air is said

to be dry in

which evaporation

That
takes

place rapidly from a surface of water or moistened

substance.

Hence,

if relative

humidity shows a

small percentage of 100, the point of saturation in a

climate

where

the absolute moisture is great, its

effect in producing evaporation is the same as where
the absolute humidity is less at the same percentage
of 100, indicating saturation there."
Accordingly, so far as Florida is concerned, it,

its so-called

excessive

humidity,

is in that

38

respect

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

not less favorably conditioned than those

places which

boast of their dry climates,

because

their absolute humidity is less, and therefore more

conducive to health.

But the absolute humidity of

this climate is productive of benefit in modifying

its temperature.

Vapor in the atmosphere regulates

radiation of heat from the earth into the

voids of

space,

preventing

refrigeration

and sudden

changes of temperature, so inimical to the comfort
of mankind, and so destructive to vegetation and
the ripening of fruits.

Professor

Tyndall

"The observations of

the meteorologists furnish important, though hith-
erto unconscious, evidence of the influence of vapor

on the atmosphere.

Whenever the air is dry, we are

liable to extremes of temperature.

By day in such

places, the sun's heat reaches the earth unimpeded,

and renders the maximum high

by night, on the

other hand, the earth's heat escapes unimpeded into

space, and renders the minimum low.

Hence, the

difference between the maximum and the minimum

greater

where

air is driest.

Wherever

drought reigns, we have the heat of the day forcibly

contrasted with the chill of the night.

In the Sa-

har itself, when the sun's rays cease to impinge on

burning

sands,

the temperature runs rapidly

CLIMA TE

down to freezing,

because -there is no vapor over-

head to check the calorific drain."
Professor Tyndall states the phenomena in ques-

tion with

further

illustration,

above

enough for this purpose.

Dr. Baldwin calls atten-

tion to the fact that the cool nights of

the sum-

mers in Florida, so highly appreciated by all that

experienced

them,

attest

(so-called excessive) moisture

prevent radiation.

in the air

And again, during many winters

when excessive cold has characterized the weather
of the North, and the cold polar waves have been pre-
cipitated upon these latitudes, the moisture-bearing
breezes from the south meet them, and the moist-
ure overhead is condensed into clouds that prevent
severe radiation and protect them and their orange-
groves from the intense cold that otherwise they

should

experience.

But if,

as has

recently

their sad experience, those intensely cold winds, re-

duced

to a temperature

below zero, be driven as

northers down upon

Texas and the Gulf and there

reflected across to this State, the passage of them
across the warm waters of the Gulf, although modi-
fying their temperature, will still leave them cold

enough to be destructive in their effects.

But these

pre-refrigerated storms of a foreign origin are rare

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY.

visitors to this clime, and do not count as indige-
nous elements to this enjoyable climate.

To put this matter of relative humidity in yet
another light, the following table, taken by Dr. C.
J. Kenworthy from official Signal Service sources,

compares

Florida

several

other

States,

with two Mediterranean

watering-places

Mean

Relative

Humidity.

Mcntone & Cannes
Nassau, N. P....
Atlantic City, N.J.
Breck'nridge,Minn
Duluth, Minn....
St. Paul, Minn...
Punta Rassa, Fla.
Key West, Fla...
Jacksonville, Fla.
Augusta, Ga.....
Bismarck, Dak...
Boston, Mass....

Novem-
ber.

Per et.
3 71-8
1 76*1
5 76"9
5 7609

6 970-8
5 72*7
5 77-1
5 71"9
5 71*8
1 76"6
1 68"0

Decem-
ber.

Per et.
74-2
72"0
79"1
8312
12"1
78*5
78-2
78"7
69*8
7216
76*4
61*8

Jana-
ary.

Per et.
72-0
7700
8016
7618
72-7
75*2
74*2
78-9
7012
7890
77*4
60-6

Febrau-
ary.

Per et
70-7
72"5
77-8
81"8
78-8
70-7
7387
77-2
08*5
6487
81"6
68-2

March.

Per t.
78.8
684
76-8
79-5
71-0
67-1
69-9
72"2
68-9
62o8
70"6
6887

Mean
for fv"
m'ntLa.

DIVISIONS.

three Floridas, three cli-

enic problems involved.
In defining these three
Floridas, the lines of lati-
tude are not the divid-

the west sides of the

peninsula differ in temperature more than a degree,
the east or Atlantic side being to that extent warm-

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

er in winter.

Professor

A. H.

Curtiss,

while en-

gaged in a botanical exploration of the State sev-
eral years ago, was the first to call attention to this

interesting and important fact.

He found that in

its flora Cedar Keys on the west corresponded with

Fernandina on the east

and in the same way cor-

responded Tampa with Daytona, Charlotte Harbor
with Cape Canaveral, Cape Romano with St. Lucie,

Chukaluskee

Lake

Worth.

Lines

con-

necting these

lines.

places

respectively,

Professor

Curtiss

be called

concluded

their that "Cape Romano on the western coast and
Cape Canaveral on the eastern may be considered
the points of demarkation between the temperate

and the subtropical vegetation."

light of

these and

other similar

since developed, it seems fair to divide the State
into three Floridas, as above intimated, basing the

division upon climatic conditions.

These three are

(1) Northern, (2) Semi-tropical, and (3) Subtropical.
Taking these in this order, severally, there are:
First, Northern Florida, lying north and west of
a line from Cedar Keys to Fernandina, or perhaps
better the tortuous line of the Suwannee, Santa F6,
and St. Mary's rivers-a region whose climate may
be designated as southern.

isqo *al

DIVISIONS.

Second, Semi-tropical Florida, lying south of the
above-designated line and extending to a line from

the mouth of

the Caloosahatchee River to Indian

River

Inlet-a region

whose climate is semi-tropi-

cal, and which may be appropriately designated as

the Orange Belt

Third,

Subtropical

Florida,

or all

region

lying south of the semi-tropical orange belt above

defined, embracing the

Florida Keys.

These

three

Floridas

are distinct

in general

features, climates, and productions; but the divid-

ing lines are in no sense sharp.

These Floridas run

into one

another, and

varying seasons press their

lines northward or southward, and many conspicu-

ous floral features extend over all.

But the general

demarkation

is distinct,

defined,

easily

noted.

In climate

three are distinctly dissimilar.

In Northern Florida the extremes-approximately

stated, for illustration-are, maximum, 1050

mum, 200

mini-

; in Semi-tropical Florida, 1000 and

and in Subtropical Florida, 950 and 300. This in-
crease of equability or decrease of range as we go
south is at one with the scale covering greater dis-

tances

as, New

York,

Virginia, Florida-the

trees always coming nearer as we go south.

This

44

difference
length of

THE

FLORIDA

is the natural result
Sthe midsummer day

of the decreased
at points farther

south.

The difference

between Northern

Florida and

Semi-tropical Florida-apart from and in addition
to the difference of latitude-is largely due to the
greater elevation of the former, and the distance of

the Gulf Stream from it.

The waters of the Gulf

of Mexico attemper the immediate coast line in this
region, but their effect does not extend far inland;
and the obliquity of the dividing line is due mainly,
if not wholly, to the warming influence of the Gulf
Stream in the Atlantic.
The Gulf Stream is an immense factor in the

climate of both the peninsular divisions.

Coming

directly from the Cuban waters northward through

the Strait of Florida,

pressed

close to

the shore

along Dade County by the Bahama banks, it flows

northward-this vast

body

of deep-blue water,

thousand times the volume of the Mississippi River,
thirty miles wide, and two thousand feet deep, with

a velocity

of fully five miles an

hour-the

round.

The temperature of this enormous ocean-

river is about 840 all the time, and thus creates a
constant stratum of warm air that floats over the

land.

The temperature of the Gulf Stream is fully

OF TO-DAY

DIVISIONS. 45

nine degrees above that of the ocean-waters through
which it flows, and it loses but one degree every

five degrees of latitude.

Sir Philip Brooke reported

the temperature of the stream as 80* at the point

where the ocean-water was

The stratum of

warm air is borne westward, across the land by the

trade-winds

which

blow

constantly from the east-

ward-at least nine tenths of

and winter.

time-summer

The stream flows directly along the

Florida coast from the point of contact-about 250

20'-to Jupiter

Inlet, 270, at which point it leaves

the land, getting gradually farther out to sea. Of
course, its influence on the climate of Florida grad-

decreases as it passes northward,

ceases entirely.

never

From the Indian River Inlet-the

southern boundary of Semi-tropical Florida-north-
ward to Fernandina, the whole coast is made both

milder and

greatly more equable

Gulf

coast in the same degree of latitude; and this, as

elsewhere stated,

to the extent of

more than one

degree.

And purity accompanies equability on the

wings of these eastern winds.

They strike the land

of Florida fresh from the Atlantic, absolutely pure,
and sweep across the peninsula, bearing with them

whatever of

malaria

escapes

dilution,

absorption,

and dissipation,

thus putting the Gulf coast to a

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

disadvantage

so far as these

influences

extend.

How far they extend has not been determined, but

certainly not very far.

Long moss is much scarcer

along the Atlantic coast than in most other places
in Florida.

Thus it

be seen, and

why,

Semi-tropical

Florida enjoys an equability decidedly greater than

does Northern Florida.

climate

is that of

Northern Florida with its extremes softened a little.

This is the

part of the State

best known at

North.

The St. John's River region has been so

fully

and so frequently

written

up and

written

down that readers can not need, here and now, to

hear more of this beautiful orange belt.

The popu-

lar mistake is to confound this favored region with
the two other Floridas-the Northern and the Sub-
tropical-while the difference is considerable.
But the phenomenal effects of the Gulf Stream
and the trade-winds are to be found on the Atlantic

coast south of Indian River

Inlet

and especially

south of Jupiter Inlet, where the shore trends west-

ward and

Gulf Stream bears rather eastward,

making for a passage around Hatteras.

It is this

separation of the Gulf Stream and the shore that

really

marks

northern

boundary of

tropics.

In this eastern side of Subtropical Flor-

DIVISIONS.

ida are found the four equalizing agencies at their

greatest

to wit, the Gulf Stream, the trade-winds,

the Evefades,
land-breeze and

with water-surface preventing the

its corresponding

sea-breeze, and

zone

barometric

pressure.

These

agencies conspire to

increase the mere latitudinal

difference
Florida.

betwec
Here

en

Semi-tropical

Subtropical

the midsummer heat that

might

otherwise be 950

, say, is reduced to something like

and the midwinter chill that might otherwise

be, say, 300

,is warmed up to something like 400

The trade-winds, in bringing to the Subtropics the
breath of the Gulf Stream, hurry off all incipient

malaria into the Everglades, and

keep pure

air of

eastern

coast.

absence

Spanish moss from this region

proves the purity

of its atmosphere; for, as a rule, in this latitude, if
moss does not mean malaria, it at least raises an

uncomfortable doubt in the premises.

Here, also,

as nowhere else on the earth except in the Island

of Formosa,

are to be

found

.the most marked

results of these exceptional

climatic

agencies-an

equability

greater than is to

be found anywhere

else in either of the grand divisions of the Ameri-

can continent.

As Florida considered as a unit is

more equable, temperate, and healthy than any other

State in the

OF TO-DAY.

Union, so Subtropical Florida stands,

at least in equability, in favorable contrast with the
northern divisions of the State.
In summary, then:
The climate of Northern Florida, while its range
of temperature is the greatest of the three Floridas,
is still more equable than are the Southern States

generally.

Its greater range has its special charm

to many, and its enjoyableness depends upon indi-

vidual tastes.

For those coming to

Florida from

higher latitudes, it is naturally the most attractive

part of the State.

The frosts are always light, but

they mark definitely the seasons and

destroy the

insects, clearing the way for a pew spring.

Ice is

formed every winter, and snow has fallen but once
in forty years, and then barely an inch deep. This
one snow extended over a considerable portion of

the orange belt.

This is the land of the Le Conte

pear, as Semi-tropical

Florida is

the land of

orange, and the

subtropics

are of

the pineapple.

The semi-tropical fruits, almost all, including the

typical

orange,

can be

grown

in Northern

Florida, and especially near the southern line; but
they do not attain the degree of excellence here that
they do in their habitat, either in size or inequality.
The influence of the Mexican Gulf water is consid

THE FLORIDA

DIVISION&

erable on

the southern

border,

but, as

Gnlf

Stream does not reach those waters, the influence

is merely that of

an ocean-frontage.

There are,

however, the daily alternating land and sea breezes

which render grateful effects.

North of the range

and reach of these breezes, the different elevations

of land

,with lakes, rivers, and springs, give pleas-

ing variety in warm weather, and
attractive Southern climate; a clii

produce a most
mate vastly supe-

nor to most of the written-up

and classic

resorts

of the Old World.

Messrs. Reasoner, perhaps

best-informed

nurserymen

in Florida,

publish

very carefully prepared and scientific catalogue of

fruits for this State.

They give, as suiting farther

north

than the semi-tropical fruits, the

following

among many

Pears of several kinds, including the

Le Conte and the Keiffer, pecan, Japan plum, and

grapes.
habitat.

These all have Northern Florida as their

climate of

Semi-tropical

Florida,

or the

orange belt, is that of Northern

Florida, modified

by more water frontage, by the partial influence of
the Gulf Stream, especially on the eastern side, and

by the slight difference in

latitude.

highest

point in the State is well south in

this division,

and the

number

variety

lakes

in this

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

mid-Florida lake region-there

are three or four

regions

State tend

to make

one of

great

variety

and numberless

attractions.

All these and many other delectable features have

been given to the public again and again.

This re-

gion is the Florida of the legions of writers that
in the last twenty years have lavished their praises
and their abuse for the entertainment or the infor-

nation of the Northern public.

& The fruits of the

subtropics will

many of

them

grow

mature

but the trees of such are smaller and the fruit

inferior.

The Reasoner Brothers,

of Manatee, in

their list of trees called

semi-tropical have these:

The whole citrus family-orange, lemon, shaddock,

grape-fruit,

lime fig,

Cattley guava,

pome-

granate, and jujube.

The climate of Subtropical

Florida is that of

Semi-tropical

Florida, modified

by a still

greater

proportion of water-frontage, by the full influence
of the Gulf Stream, and by the slight difference in

latitude.

It is the most equable in the State.

authorities named above mention these tropical fruits
as suitable for Florida, and it is perfectly fair to as-

sume

can not

grow

to anything

perfection anywhere north of

the subtropics, and

some of them even there are a little too far north

DIVISIONS.

anonas,

the cherimoya,

guanabena

(sour-sop), custard-apple, sugar-apple, the pineapple,
sapodilla, cocoanut, mangosteen, mammee, mammee

sapota, Spanish

lime, mango, aguacate or alligator

pear, guava, ties, tamarind, and almond.

t

UMMOM C

Tax BAANA.

i|

HEALTH.

GENERAL health depends largely-indeed, almost

r-upon climate.

about Florida health-and of the popular kind it has
been voluminous-has been about that part of the
State elsewhere in these pages defined as Semi-trop-

ical Florida

and a patient public that has read Dr.

Kenworthy on the Climatology of Florida," Dr.
Logan on Climate-Cure," Dr. Blodget on "Clima-

tology," and

the more or

less able papers of Drs.

Baldwin,
Jacques,

Lawson,

Denison, Lente,

Lee, Johnson,

Wilson, and the rest, can hardly care to

have the matter treated here with any fullness. A
brief summary will suffice.
Malaria.-A good deal has been written and said
about the picturesque long or Spanish moss as an in-

dictator of malaria.

It doubtless indicates the pres-

ence of certain elements-moisture and heat, say-
that are often present where malaria prevails; and
it must be confessed that, other things being equal,

AalmoiTal the -wr'ing

HEALTH.

the probabilities of perfect healthfulness are rather

against
marshes

places

abounds.

wherein

this banner

there are many

places in

Florida entirely free from this moss, notably along
the Atlantic coast quite near the ocean, as between

260 and 270

; and there are many places where the

moss

abounds

are free

from

effects

malaria.

Malaria seems to be the great

bugbear of the

partly- informed.

character

quality

malaria can

be ascertained, approximately at

least, by finding the nature and prevalence of the

diseases
known.

caused

These

diseases

are well

Even in these, Florida stands better than

any of the other States-better as to frequency of
malarial fevers, and vastly better as to the severity

of such

cases.

fevers that

are reckoned

arising from this cause are always milder, and yield
more readily to treatment, than in most other places
where they are found, and are almost never fatal or
even very severe.
A drainage company has been operating with
thirty to forty hands, all white, since 1881, in the
heart of the Everglades, where malaria is imagined

to abound
gineer and

and James M. Kreamer, the chief en-

general superintendent,

in 1885, after

THE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

four years of work there, in his official report, says:
" One of the best attested records as to the contain.

ued healthfulness of

this portion of

State

shown by the reports respecting the condition of the
force employed by the Okeechobee Drainage Com-
pany, which has been operating on the line of the

bottom-lands since

1881.

Our em-

ploys come from almost every State in the Union

and foreign

countries.

During

this interval

1885],

and after a continuous service,

permission,

during the summer months,

without in-
there has

never been a death from any cause whatever; and a
physician in a professional capacity has never vis-

ited our work.

The health of our men, not only,

but of the residents throughout this district, is un-
impaired at this time."

Surgeon-General Lawson,

S. A., some years

ago, in his official report, after making a detailed
mention of the comparative health-merits of various

places occupied

by the

army,

gives

pointed

summary

An
stands

s respects h
pre-eminent.

health

the climate

That the

peninsular

Florida
climate

of Florida is much more salubrious than that of any
other State in the. Union is clearly established by

the medical statistics

of the army.

Indeed,

N

HEALTH.

statistics of this bureau demonstrate

the fact that

diseases that result from malaria are of much milder
type in the Peninsula of Florida than in any other

State in the

Union.

These records show that the

ratio of deaths to the number of cases of remitting

fever

has been much less

than among the troops

serving in any other portion of the United States.

In the Middle Division

of the

United States the

proportion is one death to thirty-six cases of remit-

ting fever

in the Northern Division, one to fifty-

two; in the-Southern Division, one to fifty-four

Texas, one to seventy-eight

in California, one to one

hundred and twenty-two; in
one hundred and forty-eight;

New

Mexico, one to

while in Florida it is

but one to two hundred and eighty-seven.

it may be asserted,

In short,

without fear of refutation, that

Florida possesses a much more agreeable and salu-
brious climate than any other State or Territory in
the United States."
The sanitary qualities of the Florida climate are

important.

best informed

medical

advisers

send at least two classes of patients to this State-
consumptives, or those suffering from some disease

of the
health
disease.

respiratory

without

organs,

well-defined

those
special

broken
1 form

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA .

Upon the former class of these-consumptives-

United

States

CensUs

embodied in the following

facts

reports
table:

Deaths from Consumption in 1,000 Deaths from all Causes.

Maine. .........

New Hampshire
Vermont ....
Rhode Island..
Massachusetts.
Delaware....
Connecticut...
Ohio I........
West Virginia.
Kentucky.....
Maryland.....
New Jersey ...
Michigan.....
New York ...

Tennessee....
Indiana .....
Pennsylvania.

hiCC****.C9
.. C.ll C

C Ce *

Ce.... C.1

*I C CC C *

CCCCS* S. C
C**C CC C

California
Virginia...
Iowa......
Minnesota.
Wisconsin.

North Carolina.
Illinois .......
Louisiana .....
Missouri.......
Kansas .......
South Carolina .
Mississippi .....
Alabama ......
Arkansas .....
Georgia .......
Texas ........

C C.... C C *

.......... 97
.. ....... 97
...... 90
..... 90

..C. CS
CC....

.. .. 76
.... C71
.... 70

Florida..

This table is better than a volume of arguments

and laudatory generalities, especially when consid-
ered in view of the patent fact that something like

fifty per cent of the deaths from consumption in
Florida are imported cases-cases sent thither, too
often, when the patients were so far gone as to be

beyond the hope of recovery.

It is safe to add' that

cases of this class originating here are almost inva-

riably inherited.

68
63
V D

HEALTH.

Upon the other class of cases benefited by Flor-
ida's sanatory climate-broken health, or brain-fag
-a few words from Dr. Kenworthy, a man thor-
oughly acquainted with Florida's sanitary and sana-
tory features, may suffice: "In this active business
country we find many persons who have been over-
worked and present a brbach in the chain of those
vital processes whose continuity constitutes health-

a condition popularly known as

'broken health.' In

Florida,

worn-out

man

of business, suffering

from 'broken health,' will find the necessary relax-

action

from

'brain-fag,

opportunities to take out-

door exercise, plenty of sunshine, pure and bracing
air, and other necessary adjuncts to relieve a condi-

tion affecting the many.

In this connection I can

not refrain from referring to what I consider an im-

portant fact.

From my observations in the

United

States and in foreign lands, and in hospital as well
as in private practice, I have been forced to notice

the infrequency

chronic

disease

and broken

health in Flori
of this State

da.

In my visits to various portions

I have met with many persons, old

and young, who live from year to year on improper
food, and who drink water from shallow holes, near

marshes, and

yet, singular to

persons are somewhat anemic),

say (although such
they do not present

58 THE FLORIDA OF T

any manifest diseased condition.

'O-DAY.

In cities, towns,

villages, and rural districts, where residents are sup-

plied

proper food and

drink

water, a

case of chronic disease or broken health is seldom

met with.

we have a climate in

which

these conditions rarely occur, are we not justified in
concluding that it will exert a powerful influence in

restoring the invalid
are aware, I have at

to health

various

As most of you

times

visited

many

portions of the State, and have

been surprised to

meet so many persons who have settled in it as in-
valids, and have been restored to health or compara-
tive comfort by the climate-a large proportion of

them having been

sufferers from

pulmonary

eases."

Tornadoes.-In the

light of

meteorological

servation during the past decade or two, it is per-
fectly safe to assume that Florida as a whole is as
safely out of the line and sweep of tornadoes and

hurricanes as any State in the

Union, and rather

more so than some of the Northwestern States and *
Territories.
So much for the climate of Florida as a, unit.

GEOLOGY.

THE geology of Florida is full of interest, mainly

prospective,

although

no general

survey

made.

Kost,

present

State Geologist, has issued

one report of results,

and the

public await

with profound interest the

further prosecution

the work.

A preliminary

inspection is all that has been thus far accomplished,
but that has afforded glimpses of rich treasures in

fields

of both

mineralogy

and paleontology.

Dr. Kost finds the geological formations of Florida
to be "the equivalent of the Tertiaries of the Paris
basin in France and the vale of the Thames in Eng-

land."

He reports fossil remains, not only of the

mastodon, zeuglodon, and carcharodon, but also of

the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, llama,

peccary, leop-

ard, tiger, hyena, lion, camel, and elephant; and "a

species of bimana." One of

the three

mastodon

skeletons found is of exceptional size and will be

THE FLORIDA

set up for the State Museu

OF TO-DAY

m: and it will be "the

largest one of a mastodon on record

and, next to

that of the whale, the largest known of any animal."

mineralogical

scope

is also

considerable.

Dr. Kost finds lime, iron, and sulphur widely dis-

tribute

silicon

galore, and

potassium, so-

dium, magnesium, aluminum, and phosphorus.

er authorities

report

Agates of

chalcedony

and opal are reported as found near Tampa.
Nothing has been discovered, it appears, lower

the Tertiary period

but this is abundantly

and fully represented in all its subdivisions.

Eocene is of considerable depth

the Miocene and

the Pleiocene,

while

over

nearly all

lies a

heavy spread of Pleistocene or

Post-tertiary.

The doctors disagree sadly as to the formative

agencies

made

this peninsula and their pro-

cesses.

Some years ago, such men as Agassiz and

Joseph Le Conte, after examining the Atlantic side,
told us that this southward-pointing land was un-
derbuilt by corals and upraised in successive tiers.
Later, Heilprin explored the Gulf coast, and failed

to find any confirmation of the coral-reef

He confidently asserts

theory.

"On the contrary, the ex-

istence of

heavy

fossiliferous

deposits

about

Tampa, on the Manatee, along the tributaries of the

Jf

GEOLOGY.

Big and the Little Sarasota Bays, and more particu-
larly those exposed on the Caloosahatchee, conclu-
sively proves that a coral extension to the Southern

United

States, such

as has

theoretically set

forth, does

not exist in fact."

Of the

coral, he

maintains, the structure is limited and local. Dr.
Kost thinks it almost absurd to venture upon any
statements concerning the principles of the geologi-

cal formation of the State.

He adds, however, that

when the Eocene rocks were in course of deposit,
the Tertiary was reposing at the bottom of the sea,
from one hundred to several hundred feet deep, and
was, for a time at least, sinking slowly-that is, at a

pace correspondent

to the continuous

building of

coral reefs.

This Eocene deposit, though new geo-

logically, is in
cause it dates

secular

chronology

very old,

back to a time anterior to the up-

heaval of the lower half of the Rocky Mountains.
In course of time, the bottom of the sea began to

rise, at first slowly.

During this period occurred

the Oligocene

deposits.

Later,

peared, and the Miocene deposits were made; and,
in the after-age, the land was submerged again, the
submergence embracing not only Florida but also
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and parts of

Tennessee,

Arkansas,

Texas the

whole

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

emerge a second

time, and

to rise to its

present

level.

The State Geologist finds, further, that

extensive anticlinal, of an axis parallel with that of
the peninsula, trends centrally through the penin-

" There are

to-day indications, especially on

the eastern side, of a rise of the land now in prog-

Dabney

Palmer finds

origin of

this peninsula in the changes wrought by the "rise
of the Appalachian Mountains," which diverted the
Gulf Stream from its former channel up the Mis-

sissippi

Valley.

This caused an eddy south of the

then land

and sand-bars resulted and sediment and

coral insects followed.

" And thus it has been go-

mg on

for ages-sand-bar and

deposit, and

coral

And thus the building and extension of the

peninsula

continue to this day.

The gradual up-

heaval of the land has lifted the northern and cen-
tral portions of the peninsula far above the sea-level
This elevation will probably increase, and the Ever-
glades become dry, even if not assisted by artificial

means.

The digging of wells,

has disclosed

great

State.

variety

It is not

formations

infrequent that a

throughout
S beautiful

posits of coral are disclosed high up in the peninsula

and Northern

Florida as are to be found 6n the

reefs

south

of Cape

Sable.

Should

these

causes

ress.

GEOLOGY.

continue, the deep channel of the Gulf Stream may
be closed, Cuba annexed by natural causes, the val-
ley of the Mississippi be extended, and the Gulf of

Mexico become a fertile plain."

The indications,

along both the Atlantic and the Gulf side, are con-
firmatory of the theory that the land is still rising
slowly-more slowly, it is confidently believed, than
the operations of the Atlantic Coast and Canal Com-
pany's dredging corps.

Industrial

Features

- The

industrial

arts find

some valuable mineral deposits among these rock

materials.

Kost states that several localities

been found

to have

large

deposits

phosphates,

deposits quite as

in phosphoric

as are the phosphate rocks

Ashley

on Cooper

Rivers in South Carolina, from which im-

mense revenue has been derived.

These

Florida

beds show phosphates of lime, of silica, of alumina,

and of iron.

They are indicated by phosphoric-acid-

bearing rocks in the counties of Walulla, Alachna,

Marion, Hillsborough, and Manatee.

Wakulla

the State Geologist finds a triple phosphate of lime,
iron, and alumina, indicating exceedingly valuable
beds, the samples analyzed showing in one instance

23*85 per cent

in phosphoric

equivalent to

59*05 per cent bone phosphate of lime (CasP,0O).

-T-HE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

Shell marl of marine deposit is found in nearly
all parts of the State, and inexhaustible fertilizing
marl-beds underlie the soil almost everywhere.
Limestone is to be found in nearly all parts of

the State

arge proportion of which, however,

will not yield a first quality of lime.

The rock is

generally too silicious, and slacks poorly; yet Pro-
fessor Pickel, of the State College, found by analy-

sis 93-67

of carbonate of lime, being equivalent to

52"46 per cent of quicklime.
Clays exist, especially in Northern Florida, of

which

passably

good

bricks

are made;

but the

presence of too much

either of lime or of

often

prevents the

results

in this direction.

Clays sufficiently fine and pure for pottery are to

be seen at various

points, in

lower strata.

where

coarser varieties occur.
Kaolin has been found in numerous localities;
but thus far little is known of its quality or quan-
tity.
Iron-ore is found in Northern Florida, and in

Jackson
reported

County a

"rather

extensive

deposit"

but nobody seems to believe that it exists

anywhere in paying quantities.
limonite variety, and is not the
found in all parts of the State.

The ore is of the

It is to be

There are several

GEOLOGY.

chalybeate springs whose

been tested.

medicinal qualities have

Dr. Kost thinks that a large propor-

tion of the running water of wells and springs is of
the chalybeate character; in springs and wells these
are commonly called sulphur-waters, because of the

presence

sulphureted

hydrogen

occasioned

chemical action.
by "oxides of iron.
Coal is present.
Northern Florida.

Nearly all the clays are stained

Lignite has been unearthed in
Dr. Kost discovered, in Santa

County,

a vein

about

thirty

inches

thick.

This Tertiary coal is similar to that found along the
Northern Pacific Railroad and used on that road.
An artesian well, sunk during the present year in
Marion County, it is stated, passed through a vein

of coal some

fifteen

to eighteen feet thick,

depth of nearly six hundred feet.
Limestone, quarried for building purposes, exists

in Northern Florida.

It is, however, for the most

part, soft, porous, and liable to imbibe moisture;
but the Ufiion Bank building at Marianna, in Jack-
son County, built of this material, has stood now
some forty years, and is today in a good state of

preservation.

Chimneys are frequently built of it.

It has

been pretty extensively used in

Hernando

County for both building-walls and chimneys.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

Flint-rock

is available

rough

walls,

will last till the end of time.

This is found as far

south as Sumter County, in Semi-tropical Florida.

Arrow-heads,

spear-points,

and rude

knives

were

made of this flint

cessors.

by the Indians or their prede-

In Northern Florida it abounds along the

line of the railroad in Suwannee and Alachua Coun-

Kost says

deposited from

solution

"This rock was evidently
by presence of lime and

potash, with the silica in the waters of the later Ter-
tiary, as the shell remains of the echinoidea, pecten,

etc., appear with
full integrity."

their own shell

tissue,

often in

Sandstone occurs in many places.

cementing principle

It is soft, its

being impaired "by diffusion

of aluminous materials previously oxidized."

Marble, of stalactite and

stalagmite varieties, is

to be found in the caves of Jackson County and

some other

localities.

Ceilings, floors, and walls of

the caves are covered with this marble.

It is in

some instances beautifully white and translucent.

Coqnina--a

limestone, as

name

plies-exists

in many

places

along

Atlantic

coast.

The texture of the rock, Dr. Kost writes, is

very interesting, from the integrity of the shell man

trial.

It dresses moderately well, leaving a corra-

GEOLOGY

gated surface of rather agreeable aspect.

It is very

durable, as is proved by the integrity of the walls
of St. Augustine, those of the old Spanish Fort San
Marco, and of the old cathedral at thetsame place-
some of these a matter of two centuries old.
Coralline is abundant, especially on the Atlantic
coast south of the coquina region.

But concrete-of

sand,

shells,

better, cement-is more easily managed than either
coquina or coralline, cheaper, and doubtless equally

dtirable

so that its use is likely to supersede both

the other hitherto favorite building materials. It
has been used extensively in several places, notably

at Cedar
form in

Keys ;and, more recently, in a modified

the election

of the palatial hotels at St.

Augustine.
Xineral Waters.-The great variety and abun-
dance of mineral deposits in Florida naturally give

numerous mineral springs.

The mineral waters are

in the main solutions of lime, alumina, and iron

but magnesia, soda, sulphur, and

potash occur fre-

quently, and iodine and bromine somewhat rarely.
Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Perpetual Youth has

been discovered

a score of times,

pretty much all

over the State, and the modern wonder is that that

grandiose Adelantado

himself

could

not find

THE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

when it is so numerous to-day.

Among the mineral

springs conspicuous are the

St. Mark's River, in

Wakulla

Newport

County

Springs, on
the Hamp-

ton Springs,

Taylor County;

the White

phur Springs, of Hamilton County
Springs, of Suwannee County; and

; the Suwannee
the Green Cove

Springs, of Clay County.

Soila--The soils are usually classed as first, sec-
ond, and third rate pine or sand lands, high and low
hammocks, and swamp lands.

Of the pine

lands Dr. Kost says

"The sand

deposits of

Florida

lands are

very generally mis-

judged.

They are generally estimated by the tour-

ist by what he has been conversant with in deposits
of 'sand-banks' in Northern localities, distant from

the sea,

which are generally wind-drifts or

drifts

from fresh-water bays or lakes, and the sand is quite

liable

to be clean and free from earthy or saline

mixture.

But here in

Florida

the accumulations

are from salt-water bays or sea-coasts, and they are
never free from marine salts, or more especially hav-
ing the presence of the dust of marine shells, in the
form of carbonate of lime from organic forms or

4ehells of mollusca.

Hence the sands of Florida are

far more productive as compared to others than are

those not of recent marine derivation.

It happens,

GEOLOGY

therefore, that tourists who have opportunity to in-

spect growing crops on

the andy barren'

not a little astonished to see respectably good crops

grown

on such

lands.

Similar sand deposits else-

where-that is, in the adverse circumstances-com-
monly are found to be almost completely barren."
Humus is the general need of the sand lands.
Hammocks may be defined as hard-wood lands,
the high being either alluvial or clay, the low being
of infinite variety both as to wetness and to material.

Swamps

are either sand

or low

hammocks in

process of formation.
Drainage.-Germane to the matter of soils is the

reclaiming of lands.
cially there is much

In Subtropical Florida espe-
overflowed land, and a drain-

age company has undertaken to reclaim
shares around Okeechobee as a center. H

lands on
[ere are, it

is estimated, about

eight

million

acres of

water-

covered

land-

Lake

Okeechobee,

a thousand

square miles, and
times that area.

1881.

the Everglades, more

The company began operations in

In 1887 the Legislature sent a committee to

examine and report results.

They first visited Lake

East Tohopekaliga, and

their report states

"We

find the lake eight feet two inches below its origi-
nal level, with a handsome beach of firm white sand

70 THE FLORIDA OF TO

three or four hundred feet wide,

-DA Y.

hard and level,

where formerly was seven or eight feet of water.

surrounding

marshes

swamps are dry and ready for the plow.

cypress
.. All

these lands are in the highest state of cultivation,
with handsome crops of sugar-cane, corn, potatoes,

various

vegetables,

vigorous

thrifty.

The lands are exceedingly fertile, and though

recently freed from

two to four feet of standing

water, are now dry and fit for all crops of a tem-

operate or subtropical

climate.

. Sixty-five tons

of cane, seventy bushels of corn, seventy bushels of
rice, have been raised per acre on these lands."

All this is

en couleur de rose certainly.

Toward the draining of Okeechobee directly the
Drainage Company cut one canal forty-six feet wide
and tan feet deep from the lake connecting it with
the Caloosahatchee River, which flows into the Gulf

of Mexico.
no report

The company seems to have published

recent

results

work; but Mr. John B. Hickey, of Fort Myers, on

the Caloosahatchee

River, writes that Lake Okee-

chobee is now three feet below its normal

level.

immediate

friends of this

enterprise

very hopeful of early and complete success.

appear
Many

others are

less hopeful.

As Okeechobee is 20*44

GEOLO Y.

feet above sea level, and as the Everglades-level at
Lake Worth is sixteen feet above that lake, and as
the Everglades-level at Miami is 5*5 feet above that
of Biscayne Bay, it does not seem impossible that
at least a great part of these Everglades waters may

be drained off.
canal capacity.

It seems to be a question mainly of

Writers

on hygiene

maintain that

the condi-

tions above given-removal df water from exten"

sive areas of rich alluvial lands and
the same-must evolve malaria. Th

cultivation of
e healthfulness

of this reclaimed region, however, is vouched for,

at least for

the first four years of

the Drainage

Company's operations-up to

1885-as appears in

its report quoted elsewhere in these pages in treat-

of malaria.

It kept nearly forty white men at

work summer and winter for three or four years,
and had not a single case of malarial fever. This

report

far to

prove

that malaria

is not

prevalent as is popularly'beliei, i-at l Ta in' that

Everglade-lake region.

What future developments

are to bring forth remains to be seen

and it is pos-

sible that these very operations may change things

in that regard

but, to-day, assuredly there is

great reason to be alarmed about malaria. A very
few more years of draining will settle that question.

TRAVEL

TRAvEL to

year.

Health,

Florida is
pleasure,

increasing- fm year to

and profit

are the

three

guiding stars.

These motives extend and increase

with the development of the country

pleasure, and

and health,

profit seekers rapidly become immi-

grants

home-seekers.

Over sixtn thousand

toets t-State d "- pa season.

How to reach

Florida is

the tourist's first

quiry.

From

New

England,

the adjacent States, and

Canada, excursionists for Florida should make New

York city their

common

point of departure.

that city all the great railway and steamship lines

have offices,

where full information

be got

and tickets bought not only for Fernandina or Jack-
sonville, but for numerous other points in interior
Florida.
Ocean Routes.-Of the water ways, the Mallory
Steamship Line is an excellently appointed one and

TE8A EL.

very popular.

Four first-class steamers ply between

York and Fernandina, Florida, leaving New

York every Friday.

These steamers are large, safe,

comfortable,

tons capacity

built

each,

deep

three

draught

thousand
and full

power.

Clyde's

New

York,

Charleston

Florida

Steamship Line, New York, has also four first-class
steamers, two going to Fernandina and two direct
to Jacksonville; all of them generally stopping en

route

at Charleston.

They leave

New

York

Tuesday and Fridays.
The Ocean Steamship Company have a full out-
fit of steamers sailing regularly from Boston, New

York, and Philadelphia, to Savannah,

where they

connect with the Savannah, Florida, and Western

Railway-the Waycross Short Line,

Jacksonville.

which leads to

These vessels are large, convenient,

safe, and first class in every way.

They sail from

York

three times a

week, and from Boston

on Thursday.

Overland Routea
exceptionally fine.

-Railway

travel

facilities are

The Atlantic Coast Line is the

shortest one from the East and North to Florida.
The line runs three express trains daily each way,

the time between New

York and Jacksonville be-

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

ing about

thirty hours, and by

express

train less

than teon to t
In addition to these rare facilities of speed and

frequency, this

during the

present

taken some important steps in advance of ordinary

travel.

The recent vast increase of pleasure-travel

has produced two coincident results-fine hotels in
Florida and sumptuous means of travel to the State.
The tide of fashionable touring and resort-seeking
southward has set in within the past year or two;
and the health and pleasure resorts have been made

to meet the demands of that class.

The summer

resorts of Newport,

Saratoga, Bar

Harbor,

Long

Branch, and Cape May are beginning to reappear
with at least some of their features and habitue at
St. Augustine, Pablo Beach, Rock Ledge, Tampa,
Tarpon Springs, and Key West, as winter resorts in

Florida.

In response to the increase of this class

of travel of late, the Atlantic Coast Line has put on

regularly

running

Pullman

vestibuled

trains

tween Boston and Jacksonville.

These trains con-

sist exclusively

of drawing-room

containing

each a library, reading-room, smoking-room, dining-

cars, and sleeping-cars.

The cars of these trains are

so connected by means of vestibules that each train
is practically one continuous car, with the conven-

TRA VEL.

iences of a well-ordered hotel.

The trains through-

out are lighted with electric lights depending from

the ceilings.

traveler

on these

trains

breakfast in New

York one day and dine in Jack-

sonville the next.
The Piedmont Air-Line has its advantages as an
all-rail route between the North and the South. It

runs double daily trains,

Mann

with Pullman buffet and

boudoir cars, between Atlanta and Jackson-

ville, making regular and close connections at At-

lanta with Northern trains.

North lies

through the great

The route from the
battle-fields of Vir-

ginia, the Shenandoah Valley, the beautiful broken
rolling country of the Piedmont region, which pre-
sents some of the finest landscape scenery in Amer-
ica. This connects also with the East Tennessee,
Virginia, and Georgia systems of railway.
Cincinnati is the starting-point from the North-
west region of St. Paul, Chicago, and Indianapolis;

and from
cars and

that point there run

double

daily

trains

through sleeping-
of the Cincinnati

Southern Railway and of the East Tennessee,

ginia and

Georgia

Railroad, connecting with

Savannah, Florida and Western Railway to Florida,
making the time between Cincinnati and Jackson-
ville only twenty-eight hours.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

St. Louis is a fit starting-point from the great

North-Northwest,

embracing

Kansas,

Nebraska,

Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota, Oregon, and the

ries thereabout.

Territo-

From that point the Louisville and

Nashville Railway runs

through

two trains a

mountain-regions

day, passing

Tennessee

Alabama, and connects, by way of Pensacola, with

the Florida

Railway

and Navigation

Company's

road,

passing

through

Tallahassee

and the great

tobacco and cotton region of Florida.
New Orleans is the starting-point for the South-

west-Mexico,

California,

Texas, Arkansas, Louisi-

ana, and Mississippi.

There the traveler may take

Louisville

and Nashville

Railway,

to River

Junction on the Chattahoochee River

thence, by the

Savannah, Florida and Western Railway, through
Thomasville and Waycross; or by the Florida Rail-

way or Short Line,

which passes several points of

interest-the Olustee battle-ground,

the Suwannee

River, and other attractive scenery in Western and
Middle Florida.

Jackuonville.-

reached this travel-cen-

ter, .t

rail o

water, the tourist will pause to consider the outgo-
in ve anestfiomtlis poit.
Jacksonville itself is altogether familiar to the

TRAVEL.

reading public, and on that account needs but brief

mention

here.

It has a population

and is both progressive and aggressive

has all the

modern

appliances

comfort-- fine

hotels

many of them, gas

and electric

lights, telegraph

and telephone, daily newspapers, street

The settlement was originally known

by its

original name,

Wacca Pilatka,

which means Cow's

Crossing-over-Cowford-Oxford-Bosporus; but
it became a whiteman's town in 1816, and in 1822

received
Jackson.

its present

name

in honor

Andrew

It is largely a Northern city in its spirit

and methods

at least not

essentially Southern in

any characteristic sense.
T hn become representative of
the State. of Florida, by the establishment of the

Subtropical

Exposition,

a permanent

institution,

there.
and is

It is to be kept open every winter season,

to exhibit

the products

resources

Florida and the most valuable and attractive exhib-

its that can be obtained from the Bahamas,

Indies, Mexico, and South America.

position is new in the

West

Such an

United States, and, when it

is fully organized and equipped as designed, will be

without a rival in the world.

increase its scope,

The intention is to

variety, and quality every year.

*0904e,

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

STRBET-SEn IN JAOCKSONVILLE.

season's

exhibits

were

eminently

successful

and prove the entire feasibility of the general idea.
By this means the visitor to Jacksonville is, in a

a visitor to all parts of the State.

Suitable

r5r~~
:7,~

qgr= i-l%

TRA V.R 79
buildings were erected, aad thme a et be extended
from year to year. The main building is three
hundred and twenty-five feet six iambe in length,
including towers-twenty feet-at the front end.
Its width, including the towers .or minaret -twen-
ty feet-is one hundred and fifty-two feet. En-
gine, dynamos, and other machinery anrerd
An annex, of sixty-four by eighty-eight feet, two
stories high, is for an art-gallery, restaurant, nd
other suppletory compartments.
Germane to the spirit, fim, and final cause of
the Subtropical Exposition, is the Florida Immigra-
tion Association, with headquarters at Jacksonville.
This Association, representing all parts of the State,
in the same way that the Exposition will ultimately
do, was organized for the purpose of furnishing full,
authentic, and trustworthy information to those that
are looking toward the State with conditional view
to making a home there. To carry out this object
there has been established at Jacksonville a general
agency for the purpose of inviting correspondence.
Prompt attention will be given to inquiries relating
to any section, locality, or feature of the State. It
is the purpose of this Association to deal only in
facts, and to avoid exaggerated praise, which ulti-
mately does the State more harm than, unjust de-

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY

traction.

The general agent is E. B.

Van Deman,

Jacksonville. Florida.

From

Jaukonville. There

are four

general

directions by railway from Jacksonville: one west-

ward,

reaching

Pensacola;

one

southwestward,

reaching

Cedar

Keys;

one southward,

reaching

Punta Gorda on Charlotte Harbor in the Gulf of
Mexico; and two southward, reaching St. Augus-
tine on the Atlantic coast and Titusville at the head

of Indian

River.

These

routes are controlled by

five companies.

Seven years ago

there were 537

miles of railroad in the State, whereas to-day there
are 2,180 miles.

The five companies are-the

Florida Railway

and Navigation Company, extending westward 209
miles to the Appalachicola River and to Cedar Keys,
and southward to the Withlacoochee River, Tavares,
etc.; the Plant System, which reaches southward to
Tampa and Punta Gorda; the Jacksonville, Tampa,
and Key West Railway, which extends to Sanford,
Tavares, Titusville, on Indian River, St. Augustine,

and De Land

the Florida Southern Railway, from

Palatka to Brooksville and Pemberton Ferry; and
the St. Augustine and Palatka Railroad, connecting
St. Augustine with Tocoi and Palatka, Jacksonville,

Mayport, and Pablo

Beach,

Pensacola

with Mill-

TRA VEL

view, Blue

Springs on

the St. John's with Hills-

borough on the Atlantic, and Monroe with

Tarpon

Springs.

steamboat

line-De

Bary

People's

Line-from Jacksonville up the St. John's River to
Sanford and Enterprise, runs passenger-boats every
day except Saturday.
From Jacksonville, accordingly, the traveler can

readily

reach

any point

interest,

these

abound in all directions.

Excursions

a few

hours

made

1. Pablo
e by rail.

Beach, sixteen

miles from

Jackson-

is a sea-side resort of growing

popularity, on the Atlantic shore, eight miles south

of the mouth of the St. John's River.

The beach

at this point is one of the finest on the Atlantic
coast, being straight, sandy, shelving gently, smooth,

and free from rocks and pit-holes.

The bathing is

perfectly

handsome

irregular

little

town has sprung up within the last few years, hav-
ing now a first-class hotel known as Murray Hall,
with pavilions, restaurants, and other conveniences
and comforts-an establishment as fine as any on
the Atlantic coast, pot surpassed at Long Branch,
Ocean Grove, or Cape. May.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY.

2. & Augustine, the oldest city in the United
States, is thirty-six miles by rail from Jacksonville.
The city-population, about 8,500-is noted for its

picturesque beauty;

its crumbling old city gates;

its odd streets,

ten to twenty feet wide,

without

sidewalks

its coquina-built houses; its overhanging

balconies, with a scent of days gone by over all

governor's palace;

its unique sea-wall

the hoary

ramparts of its year-laden San Marco; its medisval-

looking Moorish cathedral;
striking hotel in the world.

Lady

and the finest and most

Hardy, in her admirable book of travels,

"Down South,"

a few years ago, of this gaudily

solemn old city felicitously writes

old-fashioned

"It is like an

beauty who has been lying in

through these long years, ranked in all her finery

of feathers, furbelows,

paint, powder, and patches,

and now wakes up and walks and talks with- us in
the quaint, stilted phraseology of old days."
There is not a step nor a turn in this grand old

ruin of other days that is not interesting.

The very

ocean seems to roll in an antique sort of a way; and
the trade-winds that sweep through the picturesque

date-palms, magnolias, and

oleanders,

seem

whispering in Spanish, or howling in the
vernacular spoken there four centuries ago.

to be
Cautio

TEA VEL. 83

'-

kli

0 a ~ f1 o

STREET IN ST. AuouSTnE.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

The ancient San Marco is now Fort Marion.

was begun

probably in 1565, and is like the pyra-

mids of Egypt in being the work of slaves; and it
is a most interesting fossil of a foreign civilization,

restored by numerous later touches.
now dried up and overgrown; but

The moat is
there are still

the drawbridges, the massive arched entrance, the

barbacan,

the dark

under-ways,

the sullen

bastions, and the crypt-like dungeons.

The princely

hotel

recently

built,

Ponce de

Leon,

annex or supplementary house, the Alcazar

has an
and the

two, a magnificent unit, unite the old and the new,
the past and the present, with wonderful splendor

and effect.

The Alcazar is unfinished.

The Ponce

de Leon revives the style of three hundred years
ago, and enriches it with all the luxuries of to-day.
It is built in the style of the early Spanish Renais-

sance,

its decided

flavor

Moresque.

The material is shell concrete, and the great build-
ing is a stupendous monolith, and was molded, not

built.

The general complexion is a light mother-

of-pearl, with bright salmon terra-cotta ornamenta-
tion. The greatest turret height is a hundred and
fifty feet. The building is five hundred feet long

covers

nearly five acres.

A thousand guests

can be accommodated and seated in the dining-room,

t.

PONOR Du Lzox HROTL.

5d

-0~,dt

I

It

THE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

and this hall is one of the marvels of this immense

establishment.

The grand parlor is one hundred and

four by fifty-three feet, but is practically divided into
five rooms by arches, portibres, and screens. The
drawing-rooms on the first floor surpass in number
and style everything of the kind ever presented to

public.

Besides all

these there are splendid

courts, fountains, lakes, tennis-courts, bowling-alleys,
bars, billiard-rooms, bazaars, and arcades; but more
sumptuous than all are the luxurious Roman, Turk-

ish, and Russian baths.

From these access is had

to the unrivaled plunge-baths of sea-water, covering
nearly half an acre of varying depths from two to

six feet.

Back

these

is the sea-bath

proper

which

be described as a stupendous cave of

solid concrete, one hundred and eighty-four feet by
eighty-four feet, and from four to thirty feet deep,
altogether making a bath without a precedent in all

history.

The electric lighting of the

building is

something phenomenal, and is in keeping with the

splendor of the whole.

The outlay for this corn-

pleted main building-the Ponce de Leon proper-
is reported as two and a half million dollars; and
the Alcazar, it is predicted, will equal the other in

both splendor and

During the

past season,

immense

hotel

was crowded

for full

TRA VEL.

months, having a thousand guests frequently

gross

income

being

stated at

over

five thousand

dollars a day.
There are at St. Augustine yet other fine hotels

-the new

Hotel

Cordova, as unique and in most

respects as fine and as well appointed as the

Hotel

the San Marco,

Magnolia,

the St. Augustine,

and half a dozen minor houses.

Fort George Island, at the mouth of the St.

John's, has fine

tropical scenery, charming

walks

and drives, and a good hotel.
4. Mayport, on the south side of the mouth of
the St. John's, is a pleasant little town of perhaps a

hundred

cottages,

many

of these

being

summer

residences for business men in Jacksonville.

St. John's

was called

thence the name of Mayport.

y the French, and
Already popular as

an excursion resort, it is growing in popularity.

5. Besides

the above

there

within

excursion distance of Jacksonville,

Orange Park,

Mandarin, Magnolia,

Green

Springs,

scores of others on the, St. John's, all having hotels,

and all their special charms.

The St. John's region

is too well known to need a word at this late day.

Longer excursions from Jacksonville lie
directions southward and westward:

in all

TRAVEL. 89

INC

L s M -
Wtt0a ( o.

LooKIo AcRoss InDIAN ERVBr.

THE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

The Narrows, with its acres and islands of oysters;

Lucie,

with its long-famed hunting-grounds and

its flocks of manatees

Eden, with its famous pine-

apple fields and fine fishing

on to Jupiter

Inlet,

the present
lighthouse

end of the
170 feet high.

telegraph

Here the tourist is defi-

nitely

within

well-grown

subtropics

cocoanut-tree

Flora's

a handsome,
conspicuous

sign of a new climate.

Only

tioned in

a few names of places have

this transit from

men-

Titusville to Jupiter

but there are more than a score of delightful places,

with each a hotel and a post-office.

The flora and

fauna gradually pass from the semi-tropical to the

subtropical
attempering

as the traveler goes

breath

of the

Gulf

southward.

Stream

becomes

more and more operative until the traveler reaches
Jupiter, where the Stream first separates from the
land in its course northward.
2. Or, the traveler may make Lake Worth his ob-

jective point.

He would then, as before, go from

Jacksonville by rail to Titusville, 166 miles
Titusville to Jupiter by steamer, 118 miles
Jupiter by hack to Lake Worth, 8 miles. C

from
from

)nce on

the lake-which, like Indian River, was originally a
sound-he can go to any point in boat, either row,

TRA VEL.

sail, or steam; mostly sail.
long, about a mile wide,

Lake Worth is 23 miles

and separated

from the

Atlantic by a narrow strip of land in some places

less than a quarter of a mile wide.

An inlet near

the northern end of the lake connects it with the

Atlantic.

The water of the lake is less salt than

that of the

ocean,

reason

numerous

small

streams and a general seepage from the fresh-water

lakes above to the westward.

The fresh-water lakes

are about a mile west of Lake

Worth

so that the

fisherman

finds three kinds of water in less than

three miles-the ocean, the semi-salt lake, and the

fresh lakes-with their several

Deer,

turkeys, ducks, and small

families of

game of

fishes.
various

kinds are abundant;
entire length of the

as indeed they are almost the
Atlantic coast, but especially

abundant in the more newly settled localities. The
flamingo, a distinctly tropical bird, has been seen as

far north as this lake.

The cocoanut-palm grows

and fruits here, while it is a very uncertain growth

anywhere north of this.

The tropical

fruits that

can be grown north of this region, can be grown
here without protection.
3. Or the tourist may make Biasyne Bay, about

sixty
point.

miles

south

Lake

beautiful

Worth,
region

there

objective
are two

THE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

routes.

One is, as above, from Jacksonville to Titus.

ville, to Jupiter, to Lake Worth; and there charter

a boat and sail

down the Atlantic coast, from the

head of Lake

Worth to

Dade County, 84 miles.

Miami, the county-seat of

From Miami to Key West

-Il
"if.

'A-

-~ -- -- C.. - 4

-- -

A HAMMOCK.

~1

Y .? c-' --- -~ *-L-

--

c.-b

TBA YEL.

the distance is 130 miles.

The other route to the

Biscayne region is, to go south down the other side
of the State-that is, from Jacksonville to Punta

Gorda by rail, to
Miami by sail.

West

by steamer or sail, to

Miami region has the usual

Atlantic coast variety of soils-pine, hammock, and

prairie

- with

the Everglades

lying

of it.

Here, in

heart of

subtropics, the visitor

sees in the flora the difference

between semi-tropic

and subtropic.

guava,

for example,

which

grows sometimes as far up as 80-and land agents
in that latitude advertise the guava as one of their
attractions-the guava, here in Subtropical Florida,
grows to be a tree twenty or even thirty feet high,

with a delicious and abundant fruit,

while in the

higher latitudes it is a shrub about as tall as a man,
with a dwarfed fruit that is hardly fit to eat at all.

So also

lime; and, indeed,

with all the

rarer and more tender fruits. Fishing and hunting
both have here the best of fields. The Gulf Stream
brings into these waters the whole family of tropi-
cal fishes, and carries the same up as far north as

Jupiter Inlet.

As to climate, this is, especially the

northern portion of it, doubtless the most equable

in the State;
United States.

and that, of

course,

means

in the

The equability appears to be pretty

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y.

uniform from

Cape

Florida

to Jupiter

Inlet-the

region touched by the Gulf Stream-and from Jupi-
ter Inlet to Fernandina the equability gradually de-
creases; but the entire Atlantic coast has less varia-
tion of temperature than other parts of the State.
4. Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades are best
reached from Jacksonville by rail to Kissimmee in

Osceola County, and

thence by

through the

lakes and down the Kissimmee River into Okeecho-

A second route is, by rail

and thence

to Punta Gorda,

by boat up the Caloosahatchee River,

into Okeechobee-a lake of about a thousand square

miles
miles.

in area,

being

about

forty

twenty-five

The river and lake travel in these routes is

not generally so delightful in itself as a

but as a picnic,

vestibuled

pleasant and refreshing.

5. Key West is in Monroe County, on an island
the name of the city, of about twelve square

miles.

is a Spanish-looking

town

nearly

20,000 inhabitants, is lighted

with gas, runs street-

cars, and

is reached by telegraph.

and antiquely novel city, full of

It is a quaint
oddities and va-

riety.

Dr. Henshall

says its

buildings

are of all

sizes and of

every

conceivable style, or no

style,

of architecture; and they are promiscuously jumbled
together, but are joined or seamed to each other by

TRA YEL.

a wealth and
surrounds, in

them
harsh

profusion

vests,

,softening the

outlines,

of tropical foliage,

surmounts, i
asperities, t
uniting the

which

overshadows

oning

down

separate

pieces,

which merge their

individuality in a harmonious

tout ensemble.

That writer sums up

West's

heterogeneous attractions in these words: "And so,
mansions, huts, and hovels, balconies, canopies, and

porches,

gables,

hoods,

pavilions,

pillars,

columns, and pilasters, are mingled in endless con-
fusion, but harmonized by arabesques of fruit and
foliage, festoons of vines and creepers, wreaths and

traceries of
and shady

climbing shrubs and
bowers of palm and

trailing

flowers,

palmetto, almond

and tamarind, lime and lemon, orange and banana."
The population is mainly Cubans and Conchs, but

there are also

Englishmen,

Frenchmen,

Germans,

Spaniards, Italians, negroes, and Americans.

immigrants

from

the Bahamas

Eng-
called

Conchs,

called

and settlers

Americans.

beauties and fruits

the United States are

Th6 island is rich in tropical
and the city is noted for its

unique and picturesque features, Spanish tone, and

cigar manufactures.

In this one industry it employs

over

three

thousand

operatives, and

handles

million dollars a year.

It can be reached, as above

I

THE

FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY.

stated,

from Jacksonville

by rail

to Cedar

Keys,

Tampa, or

Punta Gorda; and from either of these

points by steamer to Key West direct.

Or, on the

other side of the peninsula, from Jacksonville by

rail to Titusville,

Inlet,
Miami

thence

steamer

thence down the coast

Lake

in Dade County, and thence one

to Jupiter

Worth

hundred

and thirty miles, by schooner, to Key

West.

vt. Cape Sable and the entire southern coast of
Lee, Monroe, and Dade Counties are well worthy a

visit.

Here the subtropical sometimes threatens to

become the tropical.

Cocoanut groves are here and

there, and the royal palm is to be found here, the

only place in the whole country.

The tourist, in

a paradise

Nature,

select

one of

skore of attractive points for

his visit and tempo-

sojourn.

Around

coast

runs

a horse

shoe of fertile land, not many miles wide at any

place, and backed by the Everglades,

in the great Okeechohee.

which center

That part of this horse-

attempered

the Gulf

Stream,

toward the east on the Atlantic side, is especially

attractive.

All this region can

be reached readily

by schooner or other boat from either Key

or Miami

West

and such boats are on hand all the time,

especially at Key West.

MsV4I-

TRA EL.

7. Tampa, some 240 miles from Jacksonville by
rail direct, is a typical Florida city, of nearly 2,000

inhabitants.

It is interesting for its history, scenery,

oranges, fish, and mounds.
graph and express. One

It is reached by tele-
riter claims that Tampa

is probably older than St. Augustine, and explains
that, in the same year that Menendez founded the
latter city, his deputy, De Reinoro, was in charge

of Tampa.

Menendez sent a hundred laborers, in-

eluding fifteen women, to Tampa to teach spinning

to the

squaws.

Padre

Rogel, a Catholic

priest,

was in charge

time, and

Spanish
tribes at

of ecclesiastical

the following

peace between the

Tocobayo.

But no

interests

Menendez

Tago and the

records

at that
made a
Tampa

of that his-

tory appear to have come down

was in

to this

Tampa Bay that General Worth persuaded

Coacoochee to go West with his tribe, as narrated
elsewhere in these pages. It is a few miles south
of this city that a very large and old orange-tree
was said to be still living that had borne over ten
thousand oranges in one year.

8. Tallahamue,

the capital

the State, is

ideal Florida city, and one of the loveliest in the

South

and a most charming

community,

homo-

generous, hospitable, and essentially

Southern.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DAY.

has a population

nearly

3,000;

has excellent

hotels, telegraph, express, ice-factory, and is reached
by rail direct, 165 miles from Jacksonville. It is
the center, too, of many attractive points to visit

-historical

homesteads,

andscapes,

lakes,

Two miles from

Tallahassee stands Bellevue,

the Murat homestead,

which

was occupied by the

widow of Murat, the marshal and King of Naples.
The prince spent the last years of his life upon his

estate

in Jefferson

County.

He and

his widow

who survived him many years lie side by side in
the Episcopal Cemetery at Tallahassee, with quaint
and interesting inscriptions over the graves.
Near by, too, is the site of the old Spanish Fort
St. Lids, with noteworthy fragments of ponderous
but decaying remains.

9. Cedar

Keys is

railway direct

miles

from Jacksonville.

It is on Way Key in the Gulf

of Mexico, four miles from the mainland.

three

thousand

inhabitants,

It has
news-

papers, two good hotels, a telegraph-office, and an

express-office.

is a port

entry,

and has

shipped as much as $695,000 worth of exports a

year,

principally

lumber,

green

turtle,

oysters.

Imports, about $5,000.

A regular line of

steamers ply between this port and the

West

TRA VEL

The Eagle and the Faber

Pencil Companies

have here each a factory for preparing the cedar-

wood

for lead-pencils.

It is a

fine field

kinds of fishing.
10. Pensacola, 326 miles by rail from Jackson-
ville, 161 miles west of Tallahassee, was founded by
the Spaniards in 1696, and has had an eventful and

checkered history.

The harbor is described as one

of the finest in the world, having an area of about
two hundred square miles, is thirty miles long, with
an average width of at least seven miles and a depth

of from thirty to

thirty-five feet of water.

entrance is half a mile wide, with twenty-four feet

of water.

There are immense quantities of lumber

shipped,

some coal

from

Alabama.

There are several newspapers, churches, and hotels

Sa fine opera-house, an

express-offic,

a telegraph-

office, and all the conveniences of a well-appointed
city. In that region are the Pensacola Navy-Yard

and the
ens, and

Lighthouse,

Bayou

Grade.

Barrancas,
Pensacola

Fort
is a

Pick-
rapidly

progressive

place,

one having

many attract-

ive features for both the sight-seer and the home-

seeker.
having

Its climate

is all

that could

advantages of

be desired

North

Florida

tier of counties.

THE FLORIDA

OF TO-DA Y

11. Appalachicola has many points of attraction.
It is about 210 miles by rail from Jacksonville, and

some

lumber-port,

and fish.

000 inhabitants.

and sends

out also

It has one newspaper,

is an important
oysters, sponges,
good hotels, and

an attractive entourage.

12. Wakalla Springs, sixteen miles from

hassee, is the source of the

Talla-

Wakulla River.

nearly circular, four hundred feet wide and a hun-

dred and

six feet

deep,

brightly

clear,

many shades, and intensely interesting.

that flows from it is two

hundred

green of
The river
fifty feet

wide at the outset, and deep enough to bear large

vessels.

spring

is in some

respects

more

remarkable

famous

Silver

Spring

Marion County.

13. Silver

Spring.

-This

phenomenal

body

water is in Marion County, and is now accessible by
rail, and enjoys the advantages of telegraph and ex-

press.

It is described as a vast circular basin

hundred feet in

diameter and nearly fifty feet in

depth; is

the source of a

river

known as Silver

Spring

Run,

navigable

small

steamers,

which flows into the Ocklawaha River, about nine

miles distant.

Notwithstanding its great depth, the

water is so clear that the smallest object-a nickel

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