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Collectible book with light wear on the cover; writing on inside front page; pages have light wear; purchase includes correspondence from the gifter Charles H. Small to the gifted, Dr. Earle G. Breeding dated 1955.
Across the Everglades: A Canoe Journey of Exploration is a prominent 1898 firsthand travel and scientific journal written by American explorer and amateur scientist Hugh L. Willoughby. The book details his historic 1897 coast-to-coast expedition across the southern Florida Everglades in a canoe, making him and his guide, Ed Brewer, the first non-Native Americans to successfully traverse and map the region from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean
Key Themes and Content
The Reality of the Landscape: Willoughby disproves the common 19th-century misconception that the Everglades was a stagnant, disease-ridden swamp. Instead, he describes it as a healthy "river of grass" filled with pure, constantly moving water and surprisingly fresh air.
Scientific Contributions: Far from just an adventure story, the book includes early, highly meticulous scientific observations. Willoughby collected water samples that were later analyzed at the University of Pennsylvania, categorized the local wildlife, and documented the region's flora
Ingenious Mapping: Because dense sawgrass made traditional ship logs or surveying wheels useless, Willoughby describes how he engineered a bicycle wheel fitted with paddles and an odometer to measure his daily travel distance through the water.
Surviving the Wilderness: The book outlines the immense physical hardships of the trek, including navigating through razor-sharp sawgrass, dealing with swarms of mosquitoes, and running dangerously low on food supplies.
Cultural Observations: The journal includes detailed interactions with the local Seminole Indians, whom Willoughby greatly respected. The book features a rare, 18-page vocabulary appendix of the Seminole language.
Historical Impact: Today, the book is considered a cornerstone piece of Florida exploration literature. Because the Everglades has been dramatically altered by 20th-century development, Willoughby's 1898 text remains an invaluable ecological baseline used by modern scientists to measure environmental degradation and guide restoration efforts.
