436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



liam Nicol, Esq., remains of a forest, portions of which are still flour- 

 ishing on the adjacent uplands. These, Mr. Nicol writes, "are of 

 oak, and are from twelve to twenty-four inches in diameter." Similar 

 ones, he is informed, occur on the north side of the beach close to the 

 ocean, which are covered by three feet of water at low tide. East- 

 ward from this point the bay is broad and shallow for upward of 

 twenty miles. The depth of water in it is from three to eight feet, 

 with from two to three feet more in some parts of the channel. A 

 tradition of the early settlers, which appears to have been received 

 from the aborigines, is, that the whole area was once a fresh-water 

 swamp, portions of which were so nearly dry at certain seasons of 

 the year, that the Indians passed over it dry-footed to the beach. 



A hundred and fifty years ago the bottom of this bay was covered 

 in many places with remains of swamp vegetation, and stumps of 

 trees, to the " great annoyance and astonishment of fishermen." 



It is probable that this section of the bay was at one time a 

 swamp or series of swamps like many now found on the contiguous up- 

 lands, and sufficiently above the level of the sea to admit of their free 

 drainage into it, for it is certain that they were supplied by the same 

 copious streams from the island which now empty into the bay. 



The character of these swamps changed when the tides overflowed 

 them. That the bay is comparatively modern is suggested by the 

 fact that no great mounds of shells ' occur near it, such as were left 

 by the aborigines along other parts of the coast. Yet it is certain 

 that the country was thickly settled by Indians. Mr. Nicol writes, 

 " There are fields known as old Indian fields which abound in shells, 

 but they nowhere take the form of mounds." 



A few miles eastAvard is the beautiful but shallow sheet of water 

 known as Tiana Bay. It fills a depression in the almost level sands 

 along this part of the coast, and is upon the site of a pine-forest. W. S. 

 Pelletreau, Esq., of Southampton, informed us that he saw in it about 

 three hundred stumps covered at low tide. They are of the same 

 species of pine which now grows on the adjacent uplands. 2 



In Peconic Bay, which divides the eastern part of Long Island 

 into two very long necks of land, the submergence' of the shores has 

 been extensive. Mr. E. F. Squires, of Riverhead, noticed not only 

 areas of swamp, but of former cedar-forests, now permanently over- 

 flowed by the tides. One point is known as " Stump Landing." 



On the north shore of the island are several tracts of " sunken 

 meadow," over which the water at low tide is from ten to fifteen feet 



1 Westward of this portion of the shore of the " Great South Bay " are many " In- 

 dian shell-heaps," all of them now surrounded by meadows. Some of them, six or more 

 feet deep, near the margin of the ocean, are covered by every tide. These are probably 

 very old, and were formed originally at the uplands. 



2 The pitch-pine (Pinus rigida). This tree almost rivals the maritime pine of Eu- 

 rope in flourishing at the verge of salt-water. Emerson states that it is not killed by oc- 

 casional overflow of the tides. 



