388 



BOTANICAL SURVEY OF DISMAL SWAMP REGION. 



narrow strip on each side of the channel, while in lagoons (notably 

 the upper part of Hack Bay) it sometimes takes the form of a meadow 

 of considerable width. While the largest, salt marshes are found 

 just inside the beach and dune area of the outer coast, the narrow 

 belts which fringe tidal streams penetrate deeply into the inland 

 plain, where they are always at once recognizable* by their peculiar 

 vegetation. 



The presence and extent of salt marshes along the shores of Curri- 

 tuck and Albemarle sounds was not ascertained. At the head of 

 Back IJay, which eventually opens into Currituck Sound, extensive 

 brackish meadows occur. On the oilier hand, this formation does 

 not exist about Edenton Hay, on the north shore of Albemarle Sound. 

 The latter sound, 1\h\ as it is by numerous fresh-water streams, some 

 of which are of considerable size, is rarely at all brackish. 



Above the limit of saline water the larger streams are bordered by 

 marshes which resemble the salt marsh, but are occupied by fresh- 

 water vegetation. 



THE PLAIN. 



The greater part of the territory east and north of the Great Dis- 

 mal Swamp, together with thai south of the swamp and immediately 

 bordering Albemarle Sound, constitutes what maybe termed "The 

 plain." It was in all probability originally everywhere covered by a 

 forest of short-leaf pine (Pinus taeda), in which hard-wood species 

 (oaks, sweet gum, etc.) held a secondary place. Since the settlement 

 of the region, however, conditions have been greatly altered. Much 

 of it has been deforested and occupied by cultivated crops and by 

 dwellings. Tn the remaining forest much of the pine has been cut 

 down, and as a result deciduous species play a much more important 

 part in its composition than was probably the case before the advent 

 of civilization. Even then the pine forest, was interrupted, especially 

 along water courses, by areas of wooded swamp and of salt marsh. 

 To-day it is for the most part broken up into scattered tracts of com- 

 paratively small extent , bel ween which intervene areas of cleared land. 

 The general surface of this plain is flat or slightly undulating 

 Elevations that can be termed hills do not, occur. To the drainage 

 system and the differences in the planl covering, rather than the 

 orography, is attributable what little of variety its physiognomy 

 exhibits. J 



THE SWAMPS. 



The Croat Dismal Swamp and the lesser outlying morasses of the 

 region constitute the most northeastern extensive outpost of that 

 immense body of palustrine forest which covers so large a part of the 

 Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States, and which extends 

 up the Mississippi River and its larger tributaries to southeastern - 

 Missouri and southern Illinois and Indiana 



