River Basin Surveys Papers, No. 13: Historic Sites in and Around the Jim Woodruff Reservoir Area, Florida-Georgia

The Apalachicola River is wholly a Florida stream, formed at the western extremity of the boundary line between Georgia and the colonial East Florida by the union of the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. The Flint is the shorter and more pellucid member of the union, while the Chattahoochee has greater volume and marked turbidity. "Rugged" is not a term that with strict propriety can be applied to Florida topography, but if understood to be used in a relative sense it may be said that the terrain about the confluence is perhaps the most rugged to be found in the State. Swinging from west to east in an arc with. a northern concavity is a height of land that originates in Florida west of the Chattahoochee and, extending into Georgia, curves northeastward east of the Flint at least as far north as Camilla, which at one time may perhaps have afforded an impediment to the passage of the waters to the southward. Certainly it continues to be responsible for the deflection of the course of the Flint to the southwest as it approaches the point of confluence. After their confluence, the conjoined rivers pierce the height of land. The terrain of the Georgia counties lying between the rivers, Seminole and part of Decatur, is low and prairielike, with a gentle slope from north to south. The west bank of the Flint from below Bainbridge to its mouth, and the east bank of the Chattahoochee below Early County to the confluence, are devoid of marked elevations either along the immediate riverbanks or at a short distance back therefrom. This is in marked contrast to the east and west banks of the respective rivers, where their flood plains are sharply delimited by relatively high bluffs.