TAYLOR: WHITE-CEDAR SWAMP AT MERRICK, LONG ISLAND 85 



question of coastal subsidence, ancient and modern. That there 

 has been such, both ancient and recent, seems quite clear not 

 only on the evidence of older writers (1, 2, 3, 4, 18, 20, 21) but 

 on evidence collected at pits dug in the marsh at Merrick in 

 191 5. If the whole region has been sinking we should expect to 

 find vegetable remains indicating a different type of flora on the 

 area now overlaid by the marsh. And if these vegetable remains 

 are not fossilized the presumption is that they are all postglacial 

 and not to be confused with glacial or interglacial material (10). 

 Such vegetable remains would seem like mute evidence of sub- 

 sidence. With these points in mind, four pits were dug in the 

 marsh situated as follows: 



I. Nearly two miles from the white-cedar trees, the surface 

 vegetation on the marsh where the pit was dug being made up of, 



Spartina cynosuroides 



Spartina patens 



Distichlis spicata 



Salicornia europaea 

 which should be evidence enough that it is near the outpost 

 of salt-marsh vegetation. It is within a few hundred yards 

 of the bay. The first two feet of digging was through solid turf 

 of Spartina cynosuroides, and its roots. At three feet and five 

 feet partly decomposed remains of the same grass, all enveloped 

 in foul-smelling black ooze, was found. It was not possible to 

 get down lower than this, the digger being unable to get footing 

 as the water rose. All of the remains here point to the region 

 having been salt marsh far back in the history of the region. 

 This is what we should expect, for if the region has been sinking, 

 presumably this seaward edge would show merely a repetition of 

 previously existing salt-marsh flora, which is exactly what our 

 evidence points to. Just how far back it has been in this con- 

 dition it is impossible to say, as guesses have varied from a few 

 inches to a foot or more a century as normal subsidence (1, 5, 18). 



II. About 100 yards seaward of the extremity of the lobe of 

 higher land. Surface vegetation at the point where the pit was 

 dug consisted mostly of the following: 



Limonium carolinianum Salicornia europaea 



Solidago sempervirens Plantago major halophila 



Tissa marina Plantago maritima 



Juncus Gerardi 



