THK i>inp: lands. 117 



and scattered over the tract. Trees here reach the height of 

 85 feet, and are from 120 to 200 years old. 



There is also another tract of 18 acres at Blue Anchor, 

 belonging to Mr. Duble, of Cedar Brook, who owns several 

 hundred acres of swamp and clearings in this section . This 

 is a forest of dense growth, " a silent sea of pines," the trees 

 varying from 50 to 70 feet in height. There is considerable 

 of pitch pine, but the yellow variety predominates. Here are 

 also the red, black, white, chestnut and pin oaks. 



The large timber is being cut and hauled to Cedar Brook, 

 where the owner's saw mill is kept busy with orders more 

 numerous than can be filled. Here, as by magic, the tall, 

 straight cedars and pines, one by one, are transformed into 

 bundles of smooth shingles and enviable piles of charming, 

 golden lumber. ^ 



Pausing to think, the question arises. Why are the pines 

 where they are ? The science of paleobotany helps to solve 

 the problem. The paleobotanists draw their conclusions from 

 fragments of wood, impressions of leaves, flowers and fruits 

 imbedded in rocks, and beds of coal. Ernest Bruncken, in 

 "North American Forests," remarks that, during Tertiary 

 times, vast forests composed of trees similar to those now 

 growing in the United States, existed in high northern lati- 

 tudes where now nearly everything is covered with ice and 

 snow. The warm climate of the Tertiary age was succeeded" 

 by the Glacial period of the Quaternary epoch. The great 

 glacier, joined by those flowing down from the mountains of 

 the West, moved southward till it reached the latitude of 

 Cincinnati, and beyond was covered with an immense thick- 

 ness of ice. Before the ice and the cold temperature the 

 forests succumbed, and many species were either extinguished 



* In New Jersey there are 2,424,931 acres of cleared upland, 2,069,819 

 acres of which are in forest. In Camden County there are 66,588 acres of 

 forest, which is about 48 per cent, of the upland area of the county, the 

 coniferous occupying the eastern and the deciduous the western part. 



