144 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



is milder and the summer more intense. Beyond Norfolk its 

 limits coincide exactly with those of the pine-barrens, and in the 

 Carolinas and Georgia it occupies a great part of the swamps 

 which border the rivers after they have found out their way from 

 among the mountains and have entered the low lands. The 

 Mississippi, from its mouth to the river of the Arkansas, is bordered 

 with marshes, which at the annual overflowing of this mighty 

 stream, form a vast expanse of waters. In Louisiana those parts 

 of the marshes where the cypress grows almost alone are called 

 Cyprieres, cypress swamps, and they sometimes occupy thousands 

 of acres. 



In the swamps of the Southern States and the Floridas, on 



whose deep, miry soil a new layer of vegetable mould is every 



year deposited by the floods, the cypress attains its utmost 



developement. The largest stocks are 120 feet in height, and 



from 25 to 40 feet in circumference above the conical base, 



which at the surface of the earth, is always three or four times 



as large as the continued diameter of the trunk : in felling them 



the Negroes are obliged to raise themselves upon scaffolds five 



or six feet from the ground. The base is usually hollow for 



three-fourths of its bulk, and is less regularly shaped than that of 



the large tupelo. Its surface is longitudinally furrowed with 



deep channels, whose ridges serve as cramps to fix it more 



firmly in the loose soil. The roots of the largest stocks, 



particularly of such as are most exposed to inundation, are 



charged with conical protuberances, commonly from 18 to 24 



inches, and sometimes 4 or 5 feet in thickness : they are always 



hollow, smooth on the surface, and covered with a reddish bark 



like the roots, which they resemble, also, in the softness of their 



wood ; they exhibit no sign of vegetation, and no cause can be 



assigned for their existence ; they are peculiar to this tree, and 



begin to appear when it is 20 or 25 feet in height ; they are not 



made use of except by the Negroes for bee hives. Amidst the 



pine forests and savannas of the Floridas, is seen here and there 



a bog or a plash of water filled with cypresses, whose squalid 



appearance, when they exceed 18 or 20 feet in height, proves 



how much they are affected by the barrenness of a soil which 



