Rum Island, Florida

THE PLACE WHERE I live has a big, well-kept secret—well kept because not that many people who live here even know it, and big because it’s something no other place can claim—the largest concentration of freshwater springs in the world, about nine hundred at last count.

The secret, in its own way, is a mira-
cle. Draw lines around the globe at the
latitudes of north and south Florida, and
most of what you will see between those
lines is desert. Yet here in northern Flor-
ida, we have water in abundance. Fed by
rainfall that percolates for years down
through limestone, our springs are then
forced up by pressures deep within the
aquifer, and emerge sparkling in the sun
like watery diamonds.

Eddee Daniel

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

and imprints an extraordinary clarity of experience, so much so that I now mark the stages of my life with the springs of my memory.

Rock Springs was an elementary school
field trip. Wekiva Springs was a high school
celebration. Poe and Ginnie—the springs
of my early twenties — were where I made
my heart’s connection with the springs,
doing laps on languid late summer after-
noons with the sun slanting down in gentle
beams through the trees, my soul in wel-
come retreat from the pres-
sures of college and work.
With constant tem-
peratures of seventy-two
degrees, our springs are
cooler in summer and
warmer in winter than the
surrounding air. Nothing
beats a cold plunge on a
ninety-five-degree day! In
winter, I’ve watched steam
rise and dance across the
surface of the water like so
many ephemeral undines.
Throughout my school
years, adulthood, and
even when I lived across
the continent, the springs
have been my constant,
my dream of paradise,
my heart’s true treasure; I
want the world to cherish
them as I have, threatened
as they are now by the very
human poisons of igno-
rance and greed.