Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/218

198 In that portion of the State which lies between the Santee and the head-waters of the Cooper commences a chain of so-called springs which present some exceedingly interesting features. Before describing them it may be well to note the surroundings. The face of the country is flat, without a single hill worthy the name. The soil is a sandy loam, and, being within the thermal influences exerted by the Gulf Stream along the entire lower coast-line for fifty miles or more inland, is well adapted to the culture of the "long-stapled," "black-seed," or "sea-island" cotton, but yields poor crops of corn, and no pasturage. The lower bank of the river is always covered by "the swamp," with its dense canebrakes and its heavy growth of cypress. The upland is a broad and rich belt, dotted with cotton-plantations, and well wooded with oak, hickory, gum, and similar trees. Winding about through this belt is a high ridge of sandy, barren soil, covered by the long-leaved or turpentine pine and a thick undergrowth of "scrub-oak." It is in the middle or plantation belt that the "springs" occur. In both swamp and pine-land the water is soft, while that of the springs is strongly charged with lime, and, unless boiled and iced, decidedly laxative. Good pure water can usually be obtained, however, within a few hundred yards from "pine-land wells," or "freestone" springs. The country abounds in game, especially the swamps—bear, deer, wild-cats, the gray fox, and other small quadrupeds, with turkeys, partridges, woodcock, snipe, and indeed all birds, common to the latitude. No rocks or bowlders are to be found. The springs occur at irregular intervals over a space of some thirty miles, at least; whether beyond that distance or not I do not know. They are not properly springs, there being no case which I can remember where any bubbling or oozing of the water occurs, nor is there any adequate outlet from any of the basins; a small and shallow stream, or "run," which is soon absorbed by the swampy soil, being the only way of escape for the water, while in some cases, as we shall see, there is absolutely no way for it to escape.

Let us now proceed to examine a few of these basins in detail. The most remarkable of them all is on the "Woodboo" plantation, about forty miles from Charleston. Walking toward a clump of tall cypresses, you suddenly find yourself on the brink of a miniature lake, the ground being firm up to the water's edge. An irregular basin, about fifty yards long by a dozen wide, is hollowed out in the blue limestone-rock which underlies the soil but a few inches from the surface, and this is filled to the brim with slightly opaline yet perfectly clear water. The bottom slopes abruptly from either side to the middle, where it is fully twelve feet deep, and where exists an irregular fissure extending the whole length of the basin, and varying from two to six inches (apparently) in width. The basin swarms with fish of every variety common to the waters of the region, and of every size. Schools of fry keep near the edges, hundreds in number, while