Aquiferious Book Cover

I opened the book and there on the title page was, “To David with Thanks, Margret Tolbert”. David later told me he took the book to her house one day and asked her to autograph it. The book titled “Aquiferious” it is about springs in North Florida including photographs, essays, scientific articles, and artworks of the springs by Margaret.

For those unfamiliar with North Florida, it has the largest collection of freshwater springs on the planet including 19 of the state’s 33 first magnitude springs. The springs are fueled by the Florida Aquifer which is an underground labyrinth of water channels carved by the slightly more acidic water in the limestone base which was deposited eons ago when Florida was covered by the ocean.  Rain filters down through the limestone and in time, sometimes weeks or even years, re-emerge in the form of springs. Some of the underground channels are quite large such as where the Santa Fe River completed goes underground to resurface three miles away.

Growing up in the area I was quite familiar with springs, having been to many of them over the years. As a child I learned to swim at Glen Springs, we rode the glass bottom boats at Silver Springs, camped at Juniper and Alexander Springs, tubed down the Ichetucknee Springs river long before it became a state park, went scuba diving at Ginnie Springs, saw manatees at Manatee Springs State Park,  went swimming at Magnesia Springs which later my uncle owned, and had been scuba diving in a number of the springs (see dive log). Springs are part of life in the area.

Margaret describes the title of her book Aquiferious as, “of and pertaining to the aquifer,” and does great justice to the term by not just showing the beauty of the springs on the surface through her art, but providing an in depth, sometimes quite literally, view of the workings of the underground aquifer and how we, the people on the surface, affect the aquifer that resides invisibly below us.  This is most apparent when you now visit some springs today which are overgown with algae and lost their crystal clear water due to farm and home fertilizer runoff.

 The book is informative, enlightening and beautifully illustrated throughout with Margaret’s art, photographs, paintings, illustrations and writings. The book can be viewed not only as art book but the scientific articles provide additional depth on their own.

Updated: 01-10-2026

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