I mentioned in my “Voyage of the Paper Canoe,” that preliminary surveys, under General Gilmore, had been made for a continuous water way across northern Florida to the Atlantic coast, via the Suwanee and St. Mary’s rivers.  Detailed surveys are now in progress.  Those interested in this enterprise hope to see the produce of the Mississippi valley towed in barges through this continuous water-way from New Orleans to the Atlantic ports of St. Mary’s, Fernandina, Savannah, and Charleston.  The northwestern as well as the southern states would derive advantage from this extension of the Mississippi system to the Atlantic seaboard, and its execution seems to be considered by many a duty of the national government.

There has been little written upon the water-courses of northwestern Florida, but several of the central, southern, and Atlantic coast rivers and lakes have been carefully explored by Mr. Frederick A. Ober, of Massachusetts, a young and enthusiastic naturalist, who, as correspondent of the “Forest and Stream,” has published in the columns of that paper a mass of interesting and valuable geographical matter, throwing much light on regions heretofore unfamiliar to the public.

CHAPTER XII.

FROM ST. MARKS TO THE SUWANEE RIVER

Along the coast.—­ Saddles breaks down.—­ A refuge with the fishermen.—­ Camp in the palm forest.—­ Parting with saddles.—­ Our neighbor the alligator.—­ Discovery of the true crocodile in America.- - The devil’s wood-pile.—­ Deadman’s bay.—­ Bowlegs point.—­ The coast survey camp.—­ A day aboard the “Ready.”—­ The Suwanee river.—­ The end.

Leaving St. Marks, we rowed down the stream to the forks of the St. Marks and Wakulla rivers.  The sources of the Wakulla were twelve miles above these forks, and consisted of a wonderful spring of crystal water, which could be entered by small boats.  This curious river bursts forth as though by a single bound, from the subterranean caverns of limestone.  Each of the several remarkable springs in Florida is supposed, by those living in its vicinity, to be the veritable “fountain of youth;” and this one shared the usual fate, for we were assured that this was the spring for which the cavalier Ponce de Leon vainly sought in the old times of Spanish exploration in the New World.