The “Scenic Highlands” Of Florida

While Florida is historically the oldest settled portion of the United States, it is not upon early discovery alone that it rests its claim of interest and fascination. The fabled "Fountain of Youth" and stories of magic wealth gave it early fame among explorers, and these lures were in reality based upon tales of the large limestone springs and other physical features of the region. So it was its geology that first gave the country that is now Florida world attention, and the study of the geological making of the State is today of absorbing interest. Perhaps one of the most general, but erroneous, conceptions about Florida is that it is entirely a low-lying, sandy, monotonously level plain. True, Florida is a state of comparatively slight relief, yet there is a pleasing diversity of surface configuration ranging from the nearly level plain of the Everglades and the coastal regions to the gently rolling, hilly and somewhat dissected uplands in the interior, particularly in northern and western Florida.

The range in elevation varies from sea level along the coast to more than 300 feet at certain points on the ridge running through the central part of the Peninsula and to approximately the same elevation in some of the northern and western counties. The highland area of the Peninsula has long been known as the Lake Region and more recently as the "Scenic Highlands." The topography is that common to limestone areas with sufficient elevation to permit the formation of depressions through the solution of the underlying limestone. The surface is dotted with beautiful, clearwater lakes, giving picturesqueness to the whole landscape.

In northern and western Florida lakes also abound. The most important streams of the state are the Escambia, Blackwater, Choctawhatchee, Apalachicola, Ocklocknee, Suwannee, St. Marys, St. Johns, Hillsboro, Caloosahatchee, and Peace Rivers. These main rivers have cut their channels through the more recent materials and into the Pliocene and older geological formations. The fact that the earliest permanent settlement in the United States was in Florida gives to the State historic age, but geologically considered it is among the youngest.

Projecting as a peninsula from the southeastern portion of the United States, Florida really stands unique, not only in its location, its climate, and its diversity of soils and vegetation but also in its geology. It is included entirely within that generally well-known province designated the Coastal Plain. Deposits or formations of the same age, and quite generally similar characteristics, can be mapped from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to the Mexican border. The prevailing characters of the formations of the State are limestones, sands, marls, clays, phosphates and recent deposits of varying character.