226 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT.
EAST COAST STRIP.
(PLATES 13.-3, 14. 1, 14.2, 17. 1, FIG. 25)
From the northern boundary of the State to Cape Florida, a distance of over 350 miles, the east coast of Florida slopes off rapidly into the Atlantic Ocean, and the waves beat upon it with full force, throwing up barrier beaches in the manner common to most wave-washed sandy coasts. The sand has been further shi fted by the wind and piled up into dunes, and the coast seems to have slowly risen or fallen, or both, for a distance of several or many feet vertically, in the last few thousand years. The result of these operations of Nature on our coast is in general a remarkably smooth and straight strip of beach and active dunes, averaging perhaps a mile in width, and back of that a lagoon about twice as wide, salt in some places and nearly fresh in others (according to the distance from the nearest inlet, etc.), and sometimes filled with marsh. Next to that is often a line of old stationary duneswith sand almost as white as snow, sometimes resting directly on the mainland and sometimes separated from it by a narrow lagoon of fresh water, or a fresh marsh. Then begin the flatwoods.
Where the water of these lagoons is fresh enough, conditions are favorable for the formation of peat, for such places, like estuaries, are obviously not subject to much disturbance by wind, tides and floods. Although I have not personally examined this region as carefully as I have some of the others, I am assured by Mr. Robert Ranson, who has been studying Florida peat for a dozen years or more, that there are large quantities of good peat along the east coast.
SOUTH FLORIDA FLATWOODS.
(PLATES 11.2, 13.1, 13.2, FIG. 2 1)
Three of the regions already described, namely, the lime-sink region, the lake region, and the East Florida flatwoods, if traced southward beyond the middle of the peninsula, seem to pass by imperceptible gradations into a region but slightly elevated above the sea, and consequently very flat, which may be called for convenience the South Florida flatwoods. Like the other divisions of the state, it is not altogether homogeneous. Some parts arc