GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 135

information about them in census reports, for several decades past. However, previous to 1887 most of the counties in central Florida were so large that statistics based on them give a very imperfect idea of conditions in any one region, so that the statistical tables in the foregoing pages begin with the census of 1890. But some data from earlier censuse.s for the area as a whole are given in the following chapters. And even if the counties had been reduced to their present size much earlier, the information in the older censuses is considerably less detailed than that in recent ones, and the remote past does not concern us as much as the recent past anyway.
 Some of the tables that follow contain the same ratios and percentages already given in the eight regional tables, but they are arranged in an entirely different manner. In the preceding tables one could follow the development of any phase of agriculture in a given region through three census periods, while in the following ones conditions in different regions at the same time are tabulated side by side to illustrate the influence of different environments. There are also a .number of additional tables to illustrate conditions whose historical aspects are unknown or not considered, such as soil analyses, climatic data, a tree census, illiteracy, schools, religious denominations, relative importance and yfeld per acre of different crops, and animal products of farms.
 In all the statistical tables where different regions are contrasted the highest ratio or percentage for each feature is printed in heavier type and the lowest in italics (unless two or more numbers ire so nearly equal that it is impossible to decide between them) ; a scheme which assists materially in picking out the salient features of each region and also in locating the best and worst places within our area for any particular thing, such as large and small farms, farm machinery, mules, sheep, bees, cotton, oranges, sugar-cane, etc.,
 STRATIGRAPHY
 Although a great deal of geological work has been done in this and other parts of Florida in recent years, our knowledge of stratigraphic details is still very imperfect, on account of the scarcity of outcrops of rocks that can be identified by their fossils or otherwise. And even if deep-wells had been drilled on every square mile and all the strata penetrated by them identified and measured it would still be quite a problem to map the. formations, because they