Subsidence along the Sea-coast of New Jersey. 319 



to wear it at all The land is very low and level. In the whole 

 county of Cape May there is not a hill of any magnitude. To 

 give an idea of the uniformity of its surface I may mention that 

 a railroad line twenty-four miles long, was surveyed through the 

 central and highest part of the county, in which the greatest 

 elevation passed over was twenty-eight feet above high water, 

 and the average was but eleven feet. The land near the shores 

 in the adjoining counties is equally low. On such shores it will 

 readily be perceived that a very slight depression of the surface 

 must bring a broad strip of land under water and that marks of 

 such depression will be found in much greater abundance than in 

 localities where the shores are bolder. 



The people along the shore in such places are very sensible of 

 this change of level between the land and water, and are per- 

 fectly well satisfied that the remains of the timber found are in 

 the places where they grew, and that they have not gone down 

 by the ground washing away, or becoming more compact. When 

 it was objected to them that the white cedar trees have no tap 

 roots but grow directly upon the muck, and of course that they 

 might have settled; it was readily admitted that one might think 

 so, but for the fact that when the cedar grows so that its roots 

 can reach hard ground as they can when the swamp is shallow, 

 that then the timber is worthless on account of the fibres inter- 

 locking so that it cannot be split into shingles, and that in shal- 

 low swamps and in the bottoms of the deeper swamps, such 

 timber is found, which is to them a plain evidence that it grew 

 there. Further they find at the bottom of such swamps gum and 

 magnolia trees which have grown upon the hard ground. Pine 

 stumps are also found at considerable depths below the surface ; 

 these are tap-rooted, and their roots reach the solid ground 

 so that they are not liable to settle. It is the general impression 

 however, that the cedar swamps do not settle as long as they re- 

 main constantly wet. 



Many of the residents who have observed this gradual en- 

 croachment of the water and marsh on the upland, have account- 

 ed to themselves for it by a variation in the rise of the tides ; 

 saying that the mouth of Delaware Bay and of the Inlets on the 

 sea-shore are more obstructed than formerly and thus cause the 

 tides to rise higher. I do not know whether the obstructions are 

 ^ they state, but if they were so as to affect the flow of the tide, 

 tigh^water mark would be lowered and not raised. But this is 

 probably not of much importance, as the tide at Cape May rises 

 <^nly about five feet, and the changes of level which have been 

 mentioned are more than equal to the whole of this, 



Mr. Edmund Blunt of New York who agrees with me in re- 

 gard to the apparent subsidence, is disposed to account for it by 

 supposing that it is in some way dependent on the clearing and 



