8 2 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tree is tall, straight, and sharp-pointed, yielding a soft, white, 

 durable wood. In the humus of the swamp, which is often sev- 

 eral feet in thickness, one tree supports another, and, if a few are 

 cut, others fall in every direction. An old cedar-swamp bottom, 

 through which there is a running stream, is usually selected for a 

 cranberry bog. Many acres of swamp land are covered with 

 huckleberries in plenty and of fine quality. There are bushy, 

 semi-marshy areas, with here and there a straggling pine. In 

 such places many rare and beautiful plants, for which the region 

 is famous, are found, and, in spite of the flies and mosquitoes, 

 they have long been a favorite resort of enthusiastic botanists. 



There are also the salt marshes, called "mashes" by the hay- 

 men and baymen, extending for many miles along the coast and 

 bays, the rich black soil of which may some day be drained and 

 tilled. It freshens when banked and sluiced. These marshes, end- 

 less to the eye, are intersected by many bays, salt-ponds, thorough- 

 fares, and winding creeks, bordered with rustling reeds, resound- 

 ing with the twitterings of many meadow- wrens, the cacklings of 

 mud-hens, and cries of many birds of the snipe order. They are 

 aglow in season with pink, white, and yellow flowers, and flecked 

 at times with the sails of boats moving in the creeks and bays. 

 These meadows yield thousands of tons of salt and black grass, 

 which is still in many places cut with the scythe and carried by 

 two men with "hand poles" to the square, clumsy scows which 

 are partly rowed and partly drifted to the landings. 



Many miles of salt meadow separate the mainland from the 

 narrow strips of sand beach bordering the sea, the white glimmer- 

 ing sands of which, covered in places with large hollies and red 

 cedars, are washed hither and thither by the waves and piled by 

 the winds in dunes. These beaches, on which are located the fa- 

 mous seashore resorts to which thousands flock for recreation, 

 are separated by many inlets, through which the tides sweep 

 swiftly. 



Here and there are the gray, unsightly boles of trees which 

 have been killed, and whole strips of woods blasted and blackened 

 by fires which rage at times in these regions. 



Few spots are favored with more rivers and streams along 

 which the scenery is wilder. Their waters are yellowish-red in 

 color at first, but become black later, owing to changes in the 

 peaty matter which they contain. Years ago these streams were 

 dammed, to supply the power with which to move the clumsy, 

 old-fashioned bellows to pump air into the furnaces in the manu- 

 facture of iron from " bog ore." 



The sand of the hills of South Jersey is yellowish in color, be- 

 cause of the iron which it contains. When firmly cemented to- 

 gether by large quantities of iron compounds, a durable ferrugi- 



