GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA 283

to Silver Springs. There is occasional freight traffic, perhaps less now than formerly, still farther up the Ocklawaha to the large lakes of central Lake County. The Kissimmee River to-ether with lakes and canals affords navigation all the way from Kissimmee to Lake Okeechobee, but as the river is very crooked and the population near it very sparse, there has never been much traffic on it. Much of the phosphate exported from the hard rock district travels a few miles on the Withlacoochee River,. from Inglis, the terminus of a short railroad, to its mouth. The lagoons along the east coast have been connected up by short canals, and the shallower stretches deepened, so that boats- drawing not more than three or four feet have an "inside passage" the whole length of the coast.
 RAILROADS
 Central Florida is well supplied with railroads, considering its sparse population, and it is one of the few parts of the United States that has had any railroad building in the last five or six years. In i88o apparently the only railroads in this area were lines connecting Cedar Keys and Ocala with Jacksonville, and an isolated line from Astor on the St. John's River to Fort Mason onv Lake Eustis:'about 83 miles in all. By 1891 the mileage had increased more than ten-fold, to 1,026, or about one mile to every ioo inhabitants.
 At the beginning of 1920 there were about 1,875 miles of track on which passenger service was operated, niaking about one mile to every 7.7 square miles or every 16o inhabitants. None of the lines are double-tracked, and the average number of passenger trains is about two each way a day (four or five on some lines in winter, though). Nearly half the present mileage belongs to the Atlantic Coast Line and its subsidiaries, and next in order are the Seaboard Air Line (including Tampa Northern, Tampa & Gulf Coast, etc.), with 28.6%, Florida East Coast, 15.2%, Tavares & Gulf 2%, Ocklawaha Valley, Charlotte Harbor & Northern, and Tampa & Jacksonville.
 The mileage of railroads for 1920 is shownby regions in Table 39, which gives also for each region the percentage of the total area, population, and railroad mileage which it has, as nearly as can be estimated.