The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-10
The Mysterious Everglades
By Frederic J. Haskin.

IfI| |h LII Ial WI laI D6l 1&ll u
 Miami, Fla, Jan. s.--The oldest map of the weseern World shows nothing of the continent of North America ex- cept the southern portion of the pen- insula of Florida. then believed to be q great island. The State of Florida was settled by Europeans long before any other State of the Union. It Is strange that Southern Florida, known longer than any other section of the country, should today contain the larg- est tract of unexpiored territory in the United States-the Everglades.
 A region of mystery, 1t has tempted many explorers to plunge into It's vast expa nse. but none of them has mapped its paths cataiogued Its wealth or solved It's secrets. Men have crossed 1t from east to west and from north to south. yet those very men would not again venture an attempt to follow their own paths. It was only seven- crossing the Everglades from the west to the east exploded the theory. long entertained by geoiosists and graveiy set down in geographies, that in the center of the Everglades there was e high plateau or a large body of open water. Five years later another ex- petition made a cursory examination of the strange and largely unknown flora and fauna of this terra incognita. And yet, practically everything that Is known about the Everglades was set down in the narrative of Escalente de Fontenada, a Spanish sailor. who was wrecked on the Florida coast some three centuries ago. and who lived for thirty years among the Indians.
 Until q year ago, when the extension of the Florida East Coast Railroad was opened for passenger trafic to Knights Key. 1t was impossible to see the Everglades without an explorers outfit and the risks attendent upon the lands. Now the railroad traverses twelve miles of the southeast corner of this region of mystery" and one may see 1t from the windows of . Pullman car.
 Not one man in thousand win see the Everglades for the first time with out an exclamation of surprise. The name fsuggests to the mind of most persons hazy idea of tangled tropi- cal swamp. jungle conceaiing alli- 8ators and poisonous reptiles. . breeding place for insect pests, an fm- nnense stasnant pool with miasmatic and death-dealing breath.
 Expecting such picture, what 6 surprise 1t ia to come suddenly Into q great open space, for all the world just like an Iowa prairie, and to be told: This Is the Everglades!" The Everglades is not land. 1t Is notfwater. It is not swamp. and 1t is not prairie. It Is just the Everglades.
 To the eye, from the vantage of the rear end of Pullman, the region has the appearance of & Western plain with an unusually liberal sprinkling of clumps' of trees. The grass .. is golden brown in the sunlight, sug- gestinR q ripeninE wheat field. Fur ther to the north the grass is of. a different variety-the terrible saw grass. which grows to. be ten feet high. As a matter of fact. the Ever glades is a vast fresh-water lake. studded with a million islands varying in size from . yard in diameter to several hundred acres in area. The region is 130 miles long, from north to Soutk. and seventy miles wide from east to west.
 It is an immense limestone basin, very shallow, and of an,ozing regu- larity of conformation. is entirely surrounded, so far as it has been ex- plored. by a narrow rim of limestone, situated three to twelve miles from thB ocsMfs on the east, and at an aver age distance of fifty miles from the Gulf coast ep the, west. The rim is twelve feet 3abSve Lfheant low tide in the Bay of lBiscayne on the east and 6 little less above the level of the Gulf Of Mexico. It is cut through at various places by the rivers which drain the Everglades.
 This great rim Is the wall of the Everglades basin. The basin is shall low, varying from one to six feet in depth, and. in rare instances, is as deep as ten feet The noor Of the basin, Is solid limestone. which gives out a hard, ringing sound when struck hv oar or boat-pole. This floor IS covered over with silt, sand. decayed vegetable matter and muck. In this Hofl covered with from four Inches to eight feet of water, grows the saw.
 Rmt there Is water everywhere. There are paths through the saw-grass hui there Is no particular reason wny they should be there. Sometimes there Ia d swift current moving through the grass-free channel. sometimes tne eur san+ trnverses the channel literally. sctns. naths. or Heads" as they are tsrmed are very deceptive. They oft. ar end in an impossible barrier or sawsrraxs. after having tempted the rosn in the canoe for many weary and Sr,,itIess miles which must De re- traced. ,n .hair xv,n1inrs. In one expedition the nrst canoe was three miles ahead or tns second by water. but was m slsnt anu only a few yards away Tn actuai olS.- ar,eu E. InRraham, now Third Vice president of the Florida East Coast Raiiroad. was the only one that has aver attempted to drive straight lihe