FLORIDA, the name of the most southerly and most nearly tropical member of the United States of North America. Including its adjacent islands and its reef-like chain of keys on the s.w. it stretches in n. lat. between 25° and 31°, and in w. long. between and 44'. The greater portion of it forms a peninsula stretching s.s.e. towards the Bahamas, having the.Atlantic on the one side, and the gulf of Mexico on the other. It adjoins, on the n., the states of Georgia and Alabama. Its greatest breadth, from the Atlantic to the river Perdido, is 360 m.; its greatest length about 400 rn.; the aver age breadth of the peninsular portion upwards of 120 m.; area, 60,000 sq. miles. The principal rivers are the St. John's, running n.e. through the peninsula, and entering the sea near Jacksonville after a course of 300 m.; the Suwanee, flowing s. from Georgia into the Mexican gulf at Vacassar bay; the Appalachicola, the Choctawhatchee, Escam bia, and Perdido. The principal towns are Tallahassee, the seat of government, situated near the middle of the northern boundary; Jacksonville; Key West; St. Mark's on the gulf: St. Augustine on the Atlantic, the Spanish capital, and the oldest settlement in Anglo-Saxon America; and Pensacola, a port near the Perdido, in the extreme w. of the state, recently rendered so conspicuous in the war of secession.
In physical character, the state, generally speaking, is part of the sandy and marshy belt which forms the immediate seaboard from the Potomac to the Mississippi. Nay, far beyond the average of the contiguous shores in either direction, it may, almost with out a metaphor, be described as amphibious. To say nothing of inlets, which carry the tide within 50 m. of every point, the interior may literally be said to teem with fresh water, here and there welling up into considerable streams from springs ranging to 250 fathoms in depth. This is more emphatically true of the s., where an immense district, known as everglades, exhibits, as its normal condition, the ordinary phenomena of a casual inundation. Though the surface is thus better adapted to pasturage than to till age, vet, in favorable localities, the soil, rather through the abundance of heat and moisture than from any inherent fertility, largely yields such productions as sugar, cot ton, and rice. Considering that the state shares with the Bahamas the dominion of that grand highway of commerce, the gulf stream (q.v.), its inexhaustible growth of timber for ship-building is peculiarly valuable. Its coasts and rivers swarm with shoals of
fish; while its dependent keys, periodically crusted with salt of the sun's making, fur nish the means of curing them.—Florida, so called because of its exuberant vegetation, was first made known to Europeans by Ponce de Leon, who landed near St. Augustine in 1512. In 1539, it was explored Fernando de Soto. Originally, the term F. vaguely indicated among the Spaniards the eastern side of the new continent to the n. of Mexico, just as the term California received a similarly loose interpretation on the western coast. Gradually, however, it came to be circumscribed by the encroachments of rival powers —its first definite boundaries being established with reference to the claims of English Georgia and French Louisiana. Even within these limits, it embraced, in addition to the F. of the present day, the maritime borders of Alabama and Mississippi. Thus fixed in position and extent the colony was ceded to England in 1763, and recovered by Spain in 1781. Louisiana having been bought by the United States from France in 1803, in 1821 F._ was also imnexed to the republic by a mixture of force and negotiation.
The same physical character of F. which impairs its economical worth, has added materially to the expense of its occupation. From about 1836 to 1S42, the Seminole Indians, protected by their swamps, tasked the resources of the American union more than any other domain of equal size ever tasked them. Notwithstanding every drawback, the country, possessing, as it does, a comparatively salubrious climate, has made a rea sonable progress in wealth and population. In 1870, 2,373,541 acres were in farms, of which 736,172 acres were improved, producing 2,225,050 bushels of Indian corn and 39;789 bales of cotton, besides other crops. The value of the assessed property in the same year was $32,480,843, and the public debt in 1873 was $5,844,840. Railways have only recently been introduced; in Jan., 1875, of 700 m. projected, 496 were completed. The number of schools in the state in 1873 was 444, with a total attendance of 16,258 pupils. In 1868 the legislature of F. agreed to the fourteenth amendment of the consti tution of the United States, and was recognized as one of the states in the union. It sends two members to the house of representatives, besides possessing the two senators belonging to every state.