OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 195 
consequence of this widening of the mouth of the river, it is fast silting up, which is to be regret- 
ted, as it is the only landing on this part of the coast. 
A few miles farther to the South, I was shown stumps that are found at least a quarter of a mile 
from the shore, which were considerably below high water. My informant assured me that his 
father had, for years, fed his hogs on the spot marked by these stumps. 
I had not proceeded far with these investigations before I.found it necessary to distinguish trees 
that have “tap-roots,” from those without. The Pine, every one knows, has a long, stout tap-root, 
often ten feet in length. These trees will grow on the verge of the ocean, where they are barely 
protected from the salt water; and I have often seen them growing on sand, not elevated a foot 
above tide. Under these circumstances they send down their long roots through the mud or sand. 
Any encroachment of the sea, barely sufficient to remove this foot of sand, will kill these trees, by 
admitting salt-water to the roots, 
When dead, and before the earth is removed to any great depth, they break off, in most cases, 
just below the stool, or point of insertion of the lateral roots, because the weakest point, leaving 
the tap-root firmly fixed in th2 ground. Of this character are the stumps to which I have just 
alluded. 
Now a person seeing such stumps below tide-level, without a close examination, would be likely 
to conclude that they were true stools, and as they could not grow where they are found, would 
refer to subsidence, what was the result of simple encroachment of the salt water. 
My next examination was of an entirely different character. On Wadmalaw Sound there are 
certain marshes, called the “Church Flats,” where real Cypress stumps, with portions of the lat- 
eral roots left, standing as they grew, are found as thick as they usually stand in a swamp, but 
buried below the surface of the marsh, which is level with high-water, to the depth of three or 
four feet, or perhaps to a greater depth. I commenced the exploration of these flats at the Cedar 
Islands, of which Fig. 32 represents a section one fourth of a mile in length, extending from the 
solid land to the channel. This section needs no explanation: the Cypress stumps referred to are 
seen on the edge of the marsh, as exposed by the channel. 
Fig. 32. 
High water. 
These flats were once covered with Cedars, many of which are still living, near the high land; 
others, though dead, are standing, and the surface studded with cedar roots, which form a tier 
above those of the Cypress. 
At this moment the surface of the marsh is elevated but a few inches above the level of high- 
tide. A new cut, which the river made here, has exposed these cedar islands to the more direct 
