FLORIANOPOLIS
115
FLORIDA
Acad^mie Fran^aise in 1788. Arrested at Sceaux in
1793, he owed his life to the death of Robespierre, but
he outlived the terrors of his imprisonment only a short
time. To modern readers, Florian is chiefly known :is
the author of pretty fables well suited as reading for
the young, but his contemporaries praised him also
for his poetical and pastoral novels. He was the
Boucher and the Watteau of the literature of the eigh-
teenth century and it is remarkable that some of his
graceful and delicate works were written in the midst
of the Revolution. The list of his works is long.
Worthy of mention are : two pastoral novels, " Galatee "
and "Estelle"; two poetical novels, "Numa Pom-
pilius" and "Gonzalve de Cordoue"; three volumes of
comedies, the principal being "Les Deux Billets",
"Le Bon Manage", "Le Bon Pere", "Jeannot et
Colin"; two volumes of short stories, a few religious
poems, like "Ruth" and "Tobie", etc. Florian was
very fond of Spain and its literature, doubtless owing
to the influence of his mother, Gilette de Salgue, who
was a Castilian. He was loved by his contemporaries
as well for his character as for his writings, and he was
much praised for his charity.
Standard editions of Flori.\n'8 works by DuFORT (Paris, 1805); JoussADT (Paris, 1887); Lacretelle and Jauffret, Eloges de Florian (Paris, 1812); Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi (Paris, 1851-63), VII, XIII; Claretie. Florian (1894).
Louis N. Delamarre. Florianopolis. See Santa Catharina, Diocese of.
Florians (Floriacenses), The, an altogether inde- pendent order, and not, as some consider, a branch of the Cistercians; it was founded in 1189 by the Abbot Joachim of Flora (q. v.), by whom its constitutions were drawn up. Besides preserving a number of Cis- tercian observances, the founder added to the auster- ities of Citeaux. The Florians went barefoot; their habits were white and very coarse. Their Breviary differed in the distribution of Offices from that of Citeaux. The constitutions were approved by Pope Celestine III in 1196. The order spread rapidly, soon numbering as many as thirty-five monasteries, but it seems not to have extended beyond Italy. In 1-170 the regular abbots were replaced by commendatory ab- bots, but the abuses of this regime hastened the de- cline of the order. In 1505 the Abbey of Flora and its affiliated monasteries were united to the Order of Ci- teaux. In 1515 other Florian monasteries united themselves to the Grande Chartreuse or to the Domini- cans, and in 1570, after a century under the regime of commendatory abbots, not a single independent monastery remained, and the Order of Flora had ceased to exist. Under the Abbot of Flora were also four monasteries of religious women, who followed the Florian rule.
Manriqde, Antiales Cistercienses (Lyons, 1642); Ughelli, Italia Sacra (Venice, 1721); Ziegelbauer, Historia Rei Litter- ana 0. S. B. (Augsburg, 1754); Acta SS., 29 May; Helyot, Histoire des ordres monastiques religieux et militaires (Paris, 1719); BuccEUNi, Menologium Benedictinum (Augsburg. 1656); Gregorius DE Lande, Beati Joachim Abbatis S. 0. Cist., etc. Apologetica (Naples, 1659).
Edmond M. Obrecht.
Florida.— The Peninsular or Everglade State, the most southern in the American Union and second largest east of the Mississippi, lies between parallels 24° 38' and 31° N. latitude and meridians 79° 48' and 87° 38' VV. longitude. Its name, commemorative of its discovery by Ponce de Leon at Eastertide (Sp. Pascua florida), 1513, or less probably descriptive of the verdant aspect of the country, was originally ap- plied to territory extending northward to Virginia and westward indefinitely from the Atlantic. Florida is bounded north by Alabama and Georgia, east by the Atlantic, .south by the Straits of Florida and Gulf of Mexico, and west by the Gulf and the Perdido River. It contains 58,680 sq. miles, 4440 being lake and river area. Politically, the State is divided into forty-six
counties, geographically into the peninsular section,
stretching 450 miles north and south, average width
95 miles, and the continental or northern portion,
measuring 400 miles from Alabama to the Atlantic,
mean width 65 miles. Its eastern coast-line, compar-
atively regular, is 470 miles long; it is paralleled al-
most its entire length by sand reefs which enclose an
inland waterway, and its outline is prolonged in the
chain of coral and sandy islets known as the Florida
Keys, which extend 200 miles in a south-westerly di-
rection, terminating in the Tortugas. Over the Keys
an extension of the Florida East Coast Railroad from
the mainland to Key West is in course of construction.
The deep-water ports are Fernandina, Jacksonville,
and Key West. The Gulf coast-line, sinuous in con-
formation, measures 675 miles; the chief ports are
Tampa, Apalachicola, and Pensacola.
Physical Characteristics. — The Everglades, of- ten erroneously described as swamp-lands, form the characteristic feature of Southern Florida. They consist mainly of submerged saw-grass plains e.xtend- ing 130 by 70 miles, studded with numerous islands which produce a semi-tropical jungle-growth. The surface water, ordinarily about knee-deep, pure, potable, and abounding in fish, has a perceptible southbound cur- rent. A limestone substratum occa- sionally appears through a bed- bottom of vege- table mould. While subterra- nean sources of supply are contri- butory, the inun- dation chiefly re- sults from the overflow of Lake Okeechobee (1200 sq. mOes), whose rock-rimmed shores, IS feet above sea-level, exceed by 10 feet the general elevation of the Everglades. North of the lake, extending through the counties of De Soto, Manatee, Osceola, and Brevard, lie vast tracts of prairie or savanna land with large swamp areas. This is the cattle region of Florida. Farther north, and embracing the counties of Polk, Lake, Orange, Sum- ter, Marion, and Alachua, is the fertile and picturesque rolling country of the central ridge with a general altitude of 200, and elevations approaching 300 feet above sea-level. This is the lake region; Lakes Kis- simmee, Tohopekaliga, Apopka, Harris, and George are chief amongst thousands. The extensive coastal plains, comprising the entire area of the Gulf and At- lantic seaboard counties, are low-lying sandy tracts, monotonously level and frequently marshy. These constitute the pine region of Florida. The northern portion of middle Florida, between the Suwannee and Apalachicola Rivers, while corresponding in general altitude and topography to the central ridge, differs widely from all other parts of the State. Red clay and loam of surpassing fertility replace the elsewhere prevalent thin sandy soils, while the featureless aspect of boundless pine plains and the recurrent sameness of undulating landscape are replaced by a rare exuber- ance and diversity of highland, plain, lake, and woodland scenery. Florida is an exceedingly well- wooded and well-watered State. Pine, cypress, cedar, oak, magnolia, hickory, and sweet gum everywhere abound, while there are good supplies of rarer hard- woods and semi-tropical varieties. There are, in- cluding the East Coast Canal nearing completion, nearly 2000 miles of navigable waterways. The chief rivers flowing into the Atlantic are; St. Mary's, form-
Seal of PYorida
