The Daily Dispatch: April 5, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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A fresh water spring at Sea.

--Mr. W. A Booth, the coast pilot of the revenue cutter Harriet Lane, reports the discovery of a boiling fresh water spring at sea, off the coast of Florida. He says the spring is situated twelve miles, north by east, from St. Augustine, Fla., and eight miles off shore. It boils up with great force, and can be described at a distance of two miles. When first seen it has the appearance of a breaker, and is generally avoided; but there is no danger in the vicinity, as there is five fathoms of water between it and the shore. Ten fathoms of water are found to the sea ward, but no bottom can be reached with the deep sea lead and thirty fathoms of line at the spring itself. The water in the spring is fresh, and is by no means unpalatable. One peculiarity about this phenomenon, is that when the St. John's river is high, it boils up from six to eight feet above the level of the sea, and presents rather a forbidding appearance. This spring has doubtless deceived hundreds, who have hastily put about from, as they thought, imminent danger, and reported seeing a ‘"rock with water breaking over it."’ The Harriet Lane has passed through it several times, and water has been drawn from it by a bucket thrown over the side, and when drank, no unpleasant taste or smell has been found. Its position and harmless character have been long unknown, but now the supposed danger has become, as it were, ‘"a well of water in a barren land."’