314 GEOLOGY IX THE MAKING. 



Many's the time I've gone nesting for them in the cedars that 

 used to be yonder." 



" What do you mean," said Dr. Lockwood, " by the cedars 

 that used to be yonder ? " 



" On the bluffs over there," pointing to the bay. " Sixty years 

 ago that bank was a great deal higher than now, and reached a 

 sight further into the Bay. There used to be a thick forest of 

 cedar on that bluff, and the mockers, a-plenty of them, built there 

 every summer. But there's not been a single cedar there for many 

 years — just how long I disremember. You see, the bluff got going 

 out to sea so fast they had to cut the cedars to save them. You can 

 see the stumps yet at any neap-tide. It 'most beats belief that the 

 bluffs ever reached as far as them stumps. Why, in my time, a 

 pretty good farm has gone off to sea. There used to be a brick- 

 yard — that has gone off, too. It lay a little north of them cedars, 

 and something can be seen of it when the tide suits. Old Auntie 

 Willetts, now dead and gone, used to milk the cows alongside of 

 what we call the black rock. That's gone, too, and I should think 

 it has sunk considerable, for it's little more than the top of it that 

 can be seen at neap-tide." Surely, an interesting bit of contempo- 

 rary geology ! 



The old man knew nothing of subsidence ; his theory was 

 simple. " Naturally the sea was uprising, sort of overflow on the 

 land. Wasn't it all the time getting the waters of all the rivers, 

 without any let-up whatever ? " 



Not only does the present condition of New Jersey illustrate 

 how profoundly a change of the flora of a district must affect its 

 fauna, but in the peninsula of Sandy Hook it possesses a geologi- 

 cal survival, which shows how rich the state must have been in 

 plant and animal life when its coasts stretched further out into the 

 warm waters of the Gulf Stream. 



Whilst the mainland is suffering from subsidence of the land 

 and denudation of the forests, Sandy Hook is increasing in both 

 these respects. It is lengthening out without narrowing, and 

 maintains, protected from the axe, a virgin forestage of the very 

 tree flora which has so nearly departed elsewhere. So dense is the 

 growth of cedars, with grand outliers of the crimson-berried holly, 

 that not only are these evergreen groves rich in food, but they are 



