A FOREST RECONNAISSANCE OF THE DELAWARE 

 PENINSULA 



By Roland M. Harper 



The Delaware peninsula, including most of Delaware, about one-third 

 of Maryland, and two counties of Virginia, about 5,700 square miles in 

 all, is a part of the coastal plain characterized by rather monotonous 

 topography (scarcely exceeding 100 feet above sea-level at any point), 

 but considerable diversity of soil, with corresponding differences in 

 vegetation and economic features. The northern boundary for the pur- 

 poses of this paper may be placed at the Pennsylvania Railroad from 

 Wilmington to Elkton and the Elk River from Elkton southwestward, 

 thus excluding Elk Neck, which differs from the larger peninsula in 

 many ways. The northern part of the peninsula does not differ very 

 much from the corresponding parts of New Jersey and Maryland, north- 

 east of Delaware Bay and southwest of Chesapeake Bay, but from there 

 toward the extremity of the peninsula the conditions become more and 

 more unique, and we find nothing corresponding either to the pine-bar- 

 rens of New Jersey^ on the one hand or the hills of Southern Maryland^ 

 on the other. 



GeneraU^spea1<ing, the richest soils on the peninsula are nearest the 

 fall-liw^and the poorest near the coast, but the gradation is not uniform, 

 but rather by steps ; and the area can be conveniently divided into six 

 essentially distinct regions by lines approximately parallel to the fall- 

 line, as shown on the accompanying map. Most of these lines have been 

 located along the boundaries of certain Cretaceous and Tertiary forma- 

 tions, a choice which seems to give the maximum contrast between ad- 

 jacent regions. Geologists have also subdivided this part of the coastal 

 plain in another way, according to its supposed Pleistocene history, 

 calling most of the area below 50 feet the Talbot terrace and the inner 

 and higher parts of the peninsula the Wicomico terrace.^ But it is dififi- 

 cult to make any satisfactory correlations of general application between 

 these alleged terraces and the soils, vegetation, or any other geograph- 



^ For a recent description of the forests of the New Jersey pine-barrens, see 

 Bull. Geog. Soc. Phila., 16: 118-121. Dec, 1918. 



' See Jour. Wash. Acad. Sci., 5: 586-587. Nov., 1918. 



^ See Md. Geol. Surv. Report on Pliocene and Pleistocene, by G. B. Shattuck, 

 1906. 



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