PRELIMINARY REPORT ON PEAT.

As in the case of the Apalachicola River estuary, many of these herbs are confined to irregular treeless strips, or marshes (see plate 22), but it would hardly be worth while to describe the marsh and swamp areas separately.
In the swamp of the Blackwater River near Milton the peat is as much as 20 feet deep, which probably indicates a comparatively recent subsidence of that amount, as in the case of the mud-filled estuary of the Apalachicola River. Furthermore, peat would hardly form at a depth of 20 feet below sea-level (though in this case one cannot be sure that the lower layers are not the remains of logs which drifted down the river and sank in centuries past). To all external appearances the peat at this locality is of very good quality, except that it has sandy layers in it, probably representing seasons of excessive floods. But even the best samples (see analyses under locality no. 7) were more than half mineral matter, and therefore utterly unfit for fuel.
ESCAMBIA AND YELLOW RIVERS.
The tributaries of the Escambia River flow through about as much red clay country in the coastal plain of Alabama as do those of the Choctawhatchee, and the Yellow River, although a smaller stream, must carry mud at times, to judge from its name and the character of the country about its head-waters; but I have never seen either of these as muddy as the Choctawhatchee usually is, and the vegetation of their estuaries resembles that of the Blackwater River just described much more than anything else I have seen, so that it will be convenient, if not strictly accurate, to discuss it here.
A few minutes was spent at the mouth of each of these rivers the latter part of September, I9IO, and the following plants noted:
TREES
Taxodium imbricarium (pond cy- Nyssa biflora (black gum)
press) Magnolia glauca (bay)
Pinus Elliottii (slash pine)
SHRUBS
Fraxinus Caroliniana (ash) Smilax laurifolia (bamboo vine)
Hypericum fasciculatum

249