628 STEVENSON— FORMATION OF COAL BEDS. [November 3, 



all the characteristics of a forest soil, and were scattered irregularly 

 as in an open wood. E. Hitchcock asserted that buried forests are 

 numerous along the coast of Massachusetts ; cedar, oak, maple and 

 beech trees are found in the harbor of Nantucket, some erect, others 

 prostrate and all of them surrounded by an imperfect peat. This 

 forest is buried under 4 feet of sand. Cook^" has described many 

 buried forests in New Jersey, the most interesting being those now 

 concealed under the tidal mar.shes. At one locality, a ditch was 

 digged to drain some large tidal ponds ; it exposed nothing but mud 

 and grass roots ; the outrush of water at ebb tide widened this narrow 

 drain to 70 feet and scoured the bottom, which proved to be thickly 

 set with pine, white cedar and gum stumps, standing upright and 

 giving every indication that they were where they had grown. 



Tuomey^*- has described an area of tidal marsh, which is covered 

 with live-oak trees, some standing, but most of them prostrate. 

 These are certainly not where they grew and it is equally evident 

 that they have not been transported. Originally this mud flat, now- 

 littered with shells of oysters and mussels, was covered with sand 

 hills, of which some remain. During storms, waves broke over the 

 peninsula, washed away the sand hills and left the trees, some of 

 which remain standing because supported by their broad roots. At 

 another locality, a great white cedar swamp shows living trees, but, 

 toward the river, the trees are dead and the continuation of the mass 

 under the river shows stumps in place. Encroachment of salt water 

 killed the dense undergrowth of the swamp — decomposition of the 

 exposed peat advanced and the trees broke off at the " air line." He 

 refers to many places where the saltwater invasion and subsequent 

 change in the swamp material caused destruction of the white cedar 

 or cypress forest ; sediment covered the stumps and another growth 

 followed. 



Agassiz,^'^ observed a submerged forest at the mouth of the 

 Igurapi Grande, which clearly belongs to the recent epoch. 



'"G. H. Cook, "Geology of New Jersey," 1868, pp. 350, 352, 354. 355, 360. 

 "'' M. Tuomey, "Report on the Geology of South Carolina," Cohimbia, 

 1848, pp. 194-200. 



"'L. Agassiz, in "A Journey to Brazil." Boston, 1868, pp. 434. 435. 



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