346 Subsidence along the Sea-coast of New Jersey, 



Win. Bartranij in his Travels in North and South Carolina in 

 the last century^ says, "It seems evident even to demonstratioii 

 that those salt marshes adjoining the coast of the main, and the 

 reedy and grassy islands and marshes in the rivers, which are 

 now overflowed at every tide, were formerly high swamps of 

 firm land, affording forests of cypress, tupelo, Magnolia grandi- 

 iiora, oak, ash, and sweet bay, and other timber trees, the same 

 as are now growing on the river swamps, whose surface is two 

 feet or more above the spring tides that flow at this day. And 

 it is plainly to be seen by every planter along the coast of Caro- 

 lina, Greorgia and Florida to the Alississippi, when they bank in 

 these grass}^ tide marshes for cultivation, that they cannot sink 

 their drains above three or four feet below the surface, before 

 they come to a stratum of cypress stumps and other trees, as close 

 together as they now grow in the swamps." 



There is another class of facts somewhat similar to those above- 

 mentioned, and of common occurrence along our shores, from 

 which these should be distinguished. The facts to which I refer 

 are such as the following. At Cape Island, Cape May county, 

 there are found stumps of oak trees at tide level which have 

 been covered by tw^elve or fourteen feet of upland soil — culti- 

 vated farm land — and have but recently been exposed by the 

 wearing away of the shores. At Union, on Karitan Bay, in 

 solid eai'th and about two feet below low water, common hard 

 wood stumps were found, in digging a large basin. Upright 

 stumps of trees have also been found in digging wells on the 

 upland, at numerous places near tide water, on Delaware Bay 

 and the Atlantic shores. In similar localities, shells of the com- 

 mon clam, oyster, and other recent species have been found m 

 wells, and I have observed them at various places several feet 

 above high tide. 



In the bank of Maurice Eiver, seven or eight feet above high 

 water and still covered by several feet of san'dy earth, is an oys- 

 ter bed. It is exposed for some rods. The shells are in common 

 blue mud, closely wedged in together, and standing with the 

 opening of the valves upwards, just as in the living beds. At 

 Tuckahoe, casts and impressions of the common clam are ^^^V^^ 

 ^ the gravel at eight or ten feet above high water. And at 

 Port EUzabeth and near Lcesburgh, shells of the clam and oys- 

 ter, and indeed of nearly all the species of shells now common 

 m the bay are found, covered by from two to six feet of sandy 

 loam, and are extensively dug for manure. I was lately in- 

 formed of the existence of an oyster bed under similar circum-^ 

 stances on the beach a httle north of Long Branch. Deposits ot 

 recent shells are found in much the same way, on all our Atlantic 

 coast^ and also on the Gulf of Mexico. So many have been 

 given by difierent observers, that for the present purpose it i5 



