There are many other springs both saline, mineral, and of pure water, which would be looked upon as wonders in any country where such wonders were less abundant. Such are the Six Mile Spring (White Spring, Silver Spring), and the Salt Spring on the western shore of Lake George, a sulphur spring on Lake Monroe, one mile from Enterprise, another eight miles from Tampa on the Hillsboro’ river, Gadsden’s spring in Columbia county, the Blue spring on the Ocklawaha, Orange Springs in Alachua county, the Oakhumke the source of the Withlacooche, and numberless others of less note.[342] Besides these, the other hydrographical features of the peninsula are unique and instructive, well deserving a thorough and special examination; such are the intermittent lakes, which, like the famous Lake Kauten in Prussia, the Lugea Palus or Zirchnitzer See in the duchy of Carniola, and the classical Lake Fucinus, have their regular periods of annual ebb and flow; while the sinking rivers Santa Fe, Chipola, Econfinna, Ocilla and others offer no less interesting objects of study than their analogues in the secondary limestone of Styria, in Istria, Carniola, Cuba, and other regions.
When we ponder on the cause of these phenomena we are led to the most extraordinary conclusions. To explain them we are obliged to accept the opinion—which very many associated facts tend to substantiate—that the lower strata of the limestone formation of the peninsula have been hollowed out by the action of water into vast subterranean reservoirs, into enormous caverns that intersect and ramify, extending in some cases far under the bed of the adjacent ocean, through whose sunless corridors roll nameless rivers, and in whose sombre halls sleep black lakes. During the rainy season, gathering power in silence deep in the bowels of the earth, they either expend it quietly in fountains of surprising magnitude, or else, bursting forth in violent eruptions, rend asunder the overlying strata, forming the “lime sinks,” and “bottomless lakes,” common in many counties of Florida; or should this occur beneath the ocean, causing the phenomenon of “freshening,” sometimes to such an extent as to afford drinkable water miles from land, as occurred some years ago off Anastasia Island, and in January, 1857, near Key West.
APPENDIX II.
THE MUMMIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
A number of years ago considerable curiosity was excited by the discovery of mummies in Tennessee and Kentucky, and many theories were promulged regarding their origin, but I believe neither that nor their age has, as yet, been satisfactorily determined.
Some were found as early as 1775, near Lexington, Kentucky, but we have no definite account of any before those exhumed September 2, 1810, in a copperas cave in Warren county, Tennessee, on the Cany fork of the Cumberland river, ten miles below the Falls. These were described in the Medical Repository by Mr. Miller, whose article was followed by another in the same periodical, illustrated by a sketch, in support of the view that this discovery indicated the derivation of the Indians from the Malays and Tartars. The same pair was also described by Breckenridge and Flint a few years later.
Shortly previous to 1813, two mummies were found in the Gothic avenue of the Mammoth Cave, and not long afterwards, (1814,) another in the Audabon avenue.
The same year, several more were discovered in a nitre cave near Glasgow, Kentucky, by Thomas Monroe, who forwarded one to the American Antiquarian Society, described by Dr. Mitchell in the first volume of the publications of that body.
Again, in 1828, two more were found in a complete state of preservation in a cave of West Tennessee, mentioned in the American Journal of Science, (Vol. xxii. p. 124.)
With that zest for the wonderful, for which antiquarians are somewhat famous, the idea that these remains could belong to tribes with whom the first settlers were acquainted, was rejected, and recourse was had to Malays, South Sea Islanders, and the antipodes generally, for a more reasonable explanation. It was said that the envelopes of the bodies (all of which bore close resemblance among themselves) pointed to a higher state of the arts than existed among the Indians of the Mississippi Valley, and that the physical differences, the color of the hair, &c., were irreconcileable. I think, however, it may be shown that these objections are of no weight, and that the bodies in question were interred at a comparatively late period.
The wrappings consisted usually of deer skins, dressed and undressed, mats of split canes, some as much as sixty yards long, and a woven stuff called “blankets,” “sheets,” and “cloth;” this was often either bordered with feathers of the wild turkey and other birds, or covered with them in squares and patterns. Their ages, as guessed from appearances, varied from ten years to advanced life. In several cases the mark of a severe blow on the head was seen, which must have caused the individual’s death. Their stature was usually in conformity to their supposed age;[343] the weight of one, as given by Flint, six or eight pounds; in all cases but one the hair of a “sorrel,” “foxy,” “yellow” or “sandy” color; and they were usually found five or six feet below the surface.