298 Chafiges of Timber mid Plants^ <i^c. 



tigable and profound;" and in it, "there are mentioned 

 no less than twenty three different species of animals which 

 are now extinct, but whose existence in former ages is 

 attested hy their fossil remains ; no recent production 

 of the sort having ever been authenticated." 



I copy the passage relative to timber; page 36 of his 

 small pamphlet. '* Many of the cavities between these 

 knolls are dry, others are in a state of ponds, but an in- 

 finite number containing morasses, which must origi- 

 nally have been ponds, supplied by springs which still 

 flow at their bottoms, and filled in the course of ages 

 with a succession of shell fish and the decay of ve- 

 getables ; so that at present they are covered with timber., 

 and have been so within the memory of man. An old 

 man, upwards of sixty, informed us that all the differ- 

 ence he could remark between these morasses now, 

 and what they w^rt fifty years ago, was, that then they 

 were generally covered with firs, and now with beach. 

 This was verified by the branches and logs of fir which 

 we found in digging ; many pieces of which had been cut 

 by beavers, the former inhabitants of these places, when 

 in the state of ponds. Scarcely a fir is ?iow to be foimd 

 in the country »^'* 



My son Richard, who with Mr. Adlum, accompanied 

 me, in 1797 or 1798, on a tour into the wilderness in 

 Lycoming county, to view some of my new lands, re- 

 minds me that on these lands, invariably, the old de- 

 cayed timber long blown down, or fallen with age, was 

 of an entirely different species from that standing. We 

 found flourishing ash, 6 feet diameter, sugar maple, 6 

 'feet through; and we measured one button wood, on 

 some fine rich bottoms on the waters of th^ Loyakock. 



