The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-04-25

.
Latent Canals 20 he BuIlt-Tbe
wealth of Timber DiscOvered-A
Great saw MfII-How Southern
Georgia VIII he Developed.
Waycross. Ca. April 24-After three
years OF persistent effort. innumerable
obstacles and enormous expenditures of
money and labor. the Suwanee canal has
been constructed and il will be partly
utilized for its original purpose by the
last Of May. An effort to derive some rev.
enue from it is now being made
il was my privilege last Saturday 10 be
one Of a party. consisting Of Capt. Henry
jackson. president OF the Suwanee canal:
DR.. b. Z. Fernow. chief of the forestry
division OF the department of agriculture.
and Prof. W. s. Yeates. state geologist,
TO visit Camp Cornelia, the headquarters
OF the company. and ride down the canal
on the steam tug Cornelia. We left the
camp at II o'clock in the morning. AS the
tug glided along, it gradually merged into
the prairies and jungles Of the swamp. On
the banks Of the canal were families bus
lily engaged in hshing for perch, Dream
and bass. Innumerable small islands
covered with dense cypress forest. were
seen on every hand. The cypress trees
houses" and the forest affords a COM
Portable shelter for the weary hunters.
The larger islands and meadows are
called bays or brakes and they are COW
cred with cypress forest. The lakes are
walled in by thick forests. and present
beautiful appearance. Pond lilies. magno-
mas and sweet bays grow in rich abund-
ance along the sides of the canal and in
the lakes, Egretts, wild ducks, and
swamp birds play i'm various directions
ana wild turkenys are seen running across
the brakes"
At a point eleven miles in the swamp
the canal ended, although its further
construction is in progress. Here and
there along the canal are tributary canals
branching out to the cypress forests
Five tributaries have already been con-
structed, and hundreds of miles Of 9TH
ers will be constructed in due course to
all parts of the swamp.
The canal is As feet wide. and from six
to forty-two feet deep, the greatest depth
being through sand ridge between Camp
Cornelia and the st. Mary's river. The
dredges in use cost 100000 and are run by
electricity. Each dredge is operated by
ten men. The average of work done in
twenty hours by the two dredges Is 800
feet Sometimes a single dredge makes
$50 feet in ten hours. The company owns
are four large islands on the property.
They are known as Floyds, Black Jack,
Mitchelrs and Billie's islands. The main
body of long leaf yellow pine is on these
islands, and the average per acre is 500
feet The timber is very fine. One bay
thirty miles long and fifteen miles wide
is called Jacksons Bay. II yields the
finest cypress wood in the south. Cypress
is not the only timber to be had in the
bays. The red bay, one of the finest or
finishing woods, is found i'm great album
dance. The company has erected a man.
moth mill at Camp Cornelia. 1t has ca
pacity of 10000 feet in ten hours.
The canal will form a network through
out the swamp, the average distance apart
INK Gu,a let.t Once in the canal the
will ha 10 int n fl M Al RAJ
to the mill by steam tugs. About one
hundred operatives are in the employ of
the company. They are under the man
agement Of S. T. Hawkins, superintendent
of the company. The operatives are
healthy, and they say that the swamp
is entirely free from malaria.
The company forbids the killing of ALI
gators In the swamp, because they are in
valuable as scavengers. and the canal is
kept remarkably clean by them.
Capt. jackson sadd that he expected to
have the swamp drained as soon as the
mill began work. I'VE WILL" said he,
first get some income from the canal,
and then we will look after the drain
age. 1t will take only short time to
finish the canal to the river, and we shall
early next fall. Our plan is to utilize all
the timbers we can In our own MILL and
then furnish other mills with logs. We
expect to receive an average of SIS
we begin moving the timber from the
swamp, we shall begin shipping logs to
OlneF mills. Inc logs VIII ne SnlIgpeu VIA
Folkston on our road. and thence on the
Plant system to their destination. Our
mill will be in operation in lees than a
month, and expect to make net profit
on the canal of $4,000 by Jan. 1, 1896"
The white sand here" remarked Prof.
Yeates, lis the finest for manufacturing
glass that can be had anywhere. It Is n
beautiful quartz, and a sample OF It should
be on exhibition at the exposition"
Capt. Jackson, in telling stories of his
adventures in the swamp, mentioned his
killing a wild boar by frightening him
with his gun. The report of the gun
struck terror to the heart of the boar and
he fell into the water and was drowned.
He said he spent two weeks in camp on
Bnlie's island, and became acquainted
with a Mr.. Lee, and his family, the only
inhabitants of the island. Mr.. Lee, he
said. had long black hair, and flowing
beard. He said that when he mentioned
the hair to Mr.. Lee the old man said: My
hair use ter be long an purity afore the
war, but when the war come erlong, the
sogers cut all the hair offn my hade
Mr.. Lees family consists of a wife and
thirteen children. They are all illiterate.
Mr.. Lee goes to Folkston once year to
sell skins and hides of otter. coon AMI
| other game Negroes regard the mystic
W. mr. i'm "a atara lone Ie-ht M