Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1910 — RECLAIMING THE EVERGLADES. [ARTICLE]

RECLAIMING THE EVERGLADES.

Occupy More than Halt of Florida South of Lake Okechobee. The Everglades occupy more than half that portion of the .state of Florida south of lake Okechooee—the largest fresh water lake wholly within the United States except Lake Michigan, says Putnam’s. In this vast region there lies upon a subsoil of coraline limestone an immense accumulation of sand, alluvfal deposits and decayed vegetable matter, forming a mass of sand and mud from two to ten feet or more in depth, that overspreads all but a few points of the first strata. Upon the mud rests a sheet of water, its depth varying with the conformation of the bottom, which is very rough and irregular; seldom at dry seasons is it greater than three' feet. The whole is filled with a rank growth of coarse grass eight or ten feet high, with a cerrated edge like a saw, from which it obtains it name of “saw grass.” In many portions of the Everglades the saw grass is so thick as to be impenetrable, but It is intersected by numerous and tortuous channels that form a kind of labyrinth where outlets present themselves in every direction; terminating, however, at long or short distances in impenetrable barriers of grass. The surface of the water is quickly affected by rain, which makes a rapid alternating rise and fall during the wet seasons. The difference of level between highest and lowest stages of water is from two to three feet; the general surface of the Everglades is thus subject to great changes. Small keys are here and there met with, which are dry at seasons; there are many such upon which the soil is very rich. It 1b thought that these keys were in the days long gone, the sites of Indian gardens.