Suhsidence along the Sea-coast of Netv Jersey. 353 



which was banked in soon after the settlement of the country, 

 ^perhaps 150 years ago. The sluices in this bank are now full 

 three feet below low- water mark, so low that they are entirely 

 useless, and it is a puzzle to the inhabitants to know what they 

 were ever put there for. The meadows on the north side of 

 Alloway's Creek were also banked about 150 years since. The 

 sluices in these banks are full three feet below low tide, and use- 

 less. I am assured by those who are familiar with such sluices 

 that they are not liable to settle in the mud when properly placed. 

 On the south side of the same stream, where the hard upland 

 comes to the waters edge, the stump of a tree is standing, which 

 has been cut down since the settlement of the country, and now, 

 though it is still firm in the gravelly and tenacious soil of the 

 hard ground, every high tide runs over it. The yqij intelligent 

 farmer* who pointed it out to me, said there were several others 

 of the same kind farther down the stream. The wood was oak ; 

 standing as they did, he thought they would have been killed 

 by the tide before it came w^ithin three feet of its present height. 

 On the Cohansey at Bridgeton, Mr. David Eeeve who was con- 

 cerned in the iron works there, made observations upon the tides 

 for twenty years from 1816. The log on which he marked the 

 result of his observations is now lost ; but he says confidently, 

 ''that the tides uniformly, when uninfluenced by winds, rose 

 higher than when my observations commencedj but how much 

 higher I am now unable to inform you." 



At Bateman's mill on Cedar Creek in the same county, the 

 filler assures me that the tides rise eight inches higher on his 

 wheel than they did twenty-five years ago. 



The Hon. Joshua Brick of Port Elisabeth, who is noted as an 

 accurate observer, gives it as his judgment that the tides rise 

 ■^pon the upland a foot higher than they did fifty years ago. 



A water mill at the head of tide on West Creek, as I am in- 

 formed by Benjamin Groffe, Esq., was very carefully located so 

 that the w^heel should not be affected by the tide backing up 

 Against it. It was built fifty-two years ago, and then it was very 

 ^are indeed for it to be stopped by the tide. Now it is stopped a 

 dumber of times every year, and it is the opinion of those most 

 competent to judge, that the tide rises fifteen inches higher on 

 the wheel than it did formerly, and they are sure it is not less 

 than twelve inches. 



A water mill standing on Sluice Creek has been built 100 

 y^ars, and the ovvnerf informs me that from old papers in his 

 possession he thinks it has lost two feet of head, — mdeed it is 

 only kept running by a dam and sluice some distance below. 



Mr. Thomas ShourJa. f Cliaton Ludlam Esq. 



SECOND SERIES, VOL. XXIV, NO. 75. NOV., 1357. 



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