344 Subsideiice along the Sea-coast of New Jersey. 



F 



in a stump, and lying directly under this, so that it must have 

 fallen before this grew, was a log with 600 rings. I have seen 

 them lying in this way, log under logy indicating that thousands 

 of years must have passed while they were accumulating. And 

 this is only the superficial portion of it. In some of the creeks 

 in the marsh, there are hundreds of stumps which only fall bare 

 at extreme low water, and both in Dennis Creek and in Maurice 

 Eiver there are- fast stumps on which there is seven or eight feet 

 water at low tide. With an instrument for soimding marshes, I 

 have been able to find these lojjs as low as eighteen feet below 



surface 



-^ 1^^ o.^^ rf c^ x.*w 



depth was cedar swamp earth. In digging a w^ell in the marsh 

 at Dennisville, a foot or two of marsh mud was passed through, 

 and then swamp earth or muck quite down to the gravelly bot- 

 tom, which was reached at eleven feet. Most of the timber 

 found was cedar, but at the bottom and fast in the hard ground 

 was gum and magnolia. 



Facts of the kind mentioned above are by no means confined 

 to the shores of New Jersey and Long Island. Prof Hitchcock, 

 in his^Geology of Massachusetts, p. 307, says a "submarine for- 

 est exists at Holmes's Hole, on Martha's Vineyard. It is on the 

 west side of the harbor, and was described by the pilot as hav- 

 ing the appearance of a marsh at low water. Stumps have been 

 found there in considerable quantity, of the cedar at least. 



"Near the southwest extremity of the Vineyard, on the north 

 shore, I was informed that another forest of similar descrifition 

 may be seen. On the north side of Cape Cod, also, opposite 

 Yarmouth, cedar stumps may be found (as I was informed by 

 the captain of the Falmouth packet) extending more than three 

 miles into Barnstable Bay. And Mr. Henry Wilder, of Lancas- 

 ter, who first directed my attention to this subject, says that the 



in 



posite the village." 



United 



i, p- 33, in speaking of the country about Portsmouth, K. H., 

 says, '4tis a^ curious fact that we discover along this eastern 

 coast unequivocal signs of partial subsidence of land at a recent 

 "period. The evidence consists of swamps, now submerged at 

 ow water, containing the roots and upright stools of the white 

 cedar, showing that an ancient forest must once have extended 

 farther seaward. One of these swamps we passed yesterday at 



Hampton, on our wav from Boston to Portsmouth." 



Hampshire, 



p. 280, an article by J. L. Hayes of Portsmouth, mentions that at 

 Rye Beach, "among the curious phenomena which may be wit 

 nessed, are the remains of a submerged forest. The stumps and 



lentlv seen 



