354 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



where the solid timber lies, and then, removing the surface, sods and roots, 

 they manage to work in the mud and water with long one-handled saws, and 

 cut off the logs, which, as soon as they are loosened, rise and float, and of 

 course are easily managed. The timber is not water-logged at all, but 

 retains its buoyancy, and the removal of that nearest the surface releases that 

 which is below, and it rises, so that a new supply is constantly coming up to 

 the workman. In this way a single piece of swamp which is below tide-level 

 lias been worked for fifty years past, and still gives profitable returns. The 

 timber is found lying iu every direction, some appearing to have been blown 

 down by the wind, and some appearing to have died and fallen after it was 

 partially decayed. The fallen timber has been covered by the accumulation 

 of muck from the decayed leaves and twigs, and other timber has grown on 

 this, to fall and in its turn give place to still another growth. How long this 

 accumulation has been going on it is impossible to tell. Dr. Beesley, of 

 Dennisville, counted 1080 rings of annual growth in a stump, and lying 

 directly under this, so that it must have fallen before this grew, was a log 

 with 500 rings. I have seen them lying in this way, log under log, indicat- 

 ing that thousands of years must have passed while they were accumulating. 

 And this is only the superficial portion of it. 



Instances of submerged trees are not confined to the coast of New Jersey, 

 but they occur along the whole coast of the Atlantic States, from the Bay 

 of Fundy to Florida. 



There is another class of facts somewhat similar to those above-mentioned, 

 and of common occurrence along our shores, from which these should be 

 distinguished. The facts to which I refer are suoh as the following. At 

 Cape Island, Cape May county, there arc found stumps of oak trees at tide 

 level which have been covered by twelve or fourteen feet of upland soil 

 cultivated farm land and have but recently been exposed by the wearing 

 away of the shores. At Union, on Raritan Ba} r , in solid earth and about two 

 feet below low water, common hard-wood stumps were found, in digging a 

 large basin. Upright stumps of trees have also been found in digging wells 

 on the upland, at numerous places near tide water, on Delaware Bay and 

 the Atlantic shores. In similar localities, shells of the common clam, oyster, 

 and other recent species have been found in wells, and I have observed them 

 at various places several feet above high tide. 



In the bank of Maurice River, seven or eight feet above high water, and 

 still covered by several feet of sandy earth, is an oyster bed. It is exposed 

 for some rods. The shells are in common blue mud, closely wedged in 

 together, and standing with the opening of the valves upwards, just as in the 

 living beds. At Tuckahoe, casts and impressions of the common clam are 

 found hi the gravel at eight or ten feet above high water. And at Port 

 Elizabeth, and near Lcesburgh, shells of the clam and oyster, and indeed 

 of nearly all the species of shells now common in the bay are found, covered 

 by from two to six feet of sandy loam, and are extensively dug for manure. 

 I was lately informed of the existence of an oyster bed under similar circum- 

 stances on the beach a little north of Long Branch. Deposits of recent shells 

 are found in much the same way, on all our Atlantic coast, and also on the 



