Jennings : A Botanical Survey of Presque Isle. 303 



both cases a vigorous black oak forest with white pines, which have 

 reached old age. 



The southern side of this ridge next to Long Pond is covered with 

 an almost pure black oak forest, many of the trees being twenty-four 

 inches or more in diameter, although relatively low and bushy. This 

 part of the ridge likely corresponds to Ridge No. 2, at Cedar Point, 

 dating from approximately 1500 A. D. 



The two narrow ridges between Long Pond and Big Chimney Pond 

 are each about one and one half miles long, about one eighth of a mile 

 apart, and run parallel to each other almost due east and west. These 

 ridges are covered by a mature black oak forest, some of the trees 

 having reached old age and fallen. Trees were noted with a diameter 

 of at least forty-six inches. The shallow trough between the ridges 

 has also a few large elms. The youngest of these ridges may correspond 

 to the oldest ridge on Cedar Point, which Moseley notes as having 

 ** many large black oak, American elm and other trees. ' ' A rough esti- 

 mate would place the age of this ridge at not far from five hundred 

 years and the age of the oldest ridge at about fifty years more. 

 The sandy soil is covered with about two inches of humus and there 

 are a few clumps of hemlock trees up to five inches in diameter. 



The land surrounding the Chimney Ponds is probably still older and 

 it is not improbable that it once extended farther to the west like that 

 portion of the peninsula immediately to the northeast. The younger 

 ridges on the peninsula curve to the southwest, in conformity with the 

 shore-line as the lake is approached, the middle and the eastern por- 

 tions of the ridges being comparatively straight. The two ridges 

 between Long Pond and Big Chimney Pond, however, have been 

 washed away by the lake, their cross-sections now standing out in 

 bold relief along the lake front. (See Plates XXV and XXXIIL ) 

 It is known that prior to the erection of the jetties this part of the 

 peninsula was being rapidly washed away. It is stated '* that a chart 

 dated 1819, as compared with a map of 1878, shows a retrogression 

 of some 1,500 feet in about three miles of the shore line of the neck 

 of the peninsula, but that from 1865 to 1895 the shore line had been 

 comparatively stationary. Reconstructing the curved ends of the 

 ridges it is seen that the land now surrounding the Chimney Ponds 

 may have extended at least half a mile out into the lake to the west. 

 This, together with the known former attachment of the peninsula 



i*Nelson, S. B. /. c, p. 417. 



