AMERICAN FOREST TREES 105 



procured. Philadelphia was not alone in its preference for cedar 

 roofs. Large shipments of shingles were going from New Jersey to New 

 York, and even to the West Indies earlier than 1750. 



Southern white cedar is said to have been the first American wood 

 used for organ pipes. The resonance of cedar shingles under a pattering 

 rain suggested this use to Mittelberger when he visited America, and he 

 tried the wood with such success that he pronounced it the best that he 

 knew of for organ pipes. 



Coopers were among the early users of white cedar. The "cedar 

 coopers of Philadelphia" were famous in their day. They used this 

 wood and also red cedar (Juniperus mrginiana), and their wares occupied 

 an important place in domestic and some foreign markets. Small 

 vessels prevailed, such as pails, churns, firkins, tubs, keelers, piggins, 

 noggins, and kegs. The ware was handsome, strong, durable, and light 

 in weight. Oil merchants, particularly those who dealt in whale oil 

 which was once an important commodity, bought tanks of southern 

 white cedar. It is a dense wood and seepage is small. 



A peculiar superstition once prevailed, and has not wholly disap- 

 peared at this day, that white cedar possessed powerful healing proper- 

 ties. It was thought that water was purified by standing in a cedar 

 bucket, and even that a liquid was improved by simply running through 

 a spigot of this wood. Some eastern towns at an early period laid cedar 

 water mains, partly because the wood was known to be durable, and 

 partly because it was supposed to exercise some favorable influence upon 

 the water flowing through the pipes. It was even believed that standing 

 trees purified the swamps in which they grew. Vessels putting to sea 

 from Chesapeake bay, sometimes made special effort to fill their water 

 casks with water from the Dismal swamp, where cedars grew abundantly 

 in the stagnant logoons. 



About 100 years ago it was found that whole forests of cedar had 

 been submerged in New Jersey during prehistoric times, and that deep 

 in swamps the trunks of trees were buried out of sight. No one knows 

 how long the prostrate trees had lain beneath the accumulation of peat 

 and mud, but the wood was sound. Mining the cedar became an im- 

 portant industry in some of the large swamps, and it has not ended yet. 

 The wood is sound enough for shingles and lumber, though it has been 

 buried for centuries, as is proved by the age of the forests which grew 

 over the submerged logs. Sometimes a log which has lain under water 

 hundreds of years, rises to the surface by its own buoyancy when pressure 

 from above is removed. This is remarkable and shows how long a time 

 this cedar resists complete waterlogging. The wood of green cedar has a 

 strong odor, and that characteristic remains with the submerged trunks. 



