424 Scientific Intelligence. 
surveyors, the marsh wears away, on an average, about one rod in two 
years; and, from the early maps, it would appear to have been going 
on at that rate ever since the first settlement of the country. A map 
of Cape May, in the possession of Dr. Maurice Beesley, of Dennis- 
ville, and bearing the date of 1694, lays down Egg Island, the western 
point of Maurice River Cove, as containing 300 acres; at low water 
it now contains a half or three-fourths of an acre, and at high water it 
is entirely covered. All along the Delaware Bay and river where the 
marshes are banked in to keep off the tide, the banks or dykes are 
placed several rods from the water’s edge, to allow for the wearing 
away of the mars 
At Town Bank, which is the principal bold shore on the west side of 
Cape May, and where the first settlement was made as early as 1691, 
the solid gravel bank, which is from twelve to eighteen feet high, wears 
away, according to the owner, Mr. Thomas Hughes, about one foot a 
year. The foundations of the houses first built were long since under- 
mined, and the waters of the bay now occupy the spot where they 
a militia artillery company had its practicing ground here. Their gun 
was placed near a house which stood just outside the present shore line, 
and their target was set up three quarters of a mile east. This last 
point was at the outer edge of the cultivated ground, and there was a 
quarter of a mile of sand hills or beaches between that and the water's 
edge. The whole of this is now gone, and one of the boarding houses 
has been moved back twice, on account of the wearing away of the 
k 
are now seen on the strand east of it. : 
That the tides rise higher upon the uplands than formerly, is the 
opinion of the oldest observers, upon the Atlantic and Bay shores, from 
Great Egg Harbor quite around to Salem creek. Their opinion 1s 
founded on the fact, that on the low uplands, or those going down to 
the salt marsh with a very gentle slope, the salt grass now grows where 
upland grass formerly grew; and where the land was in wood, narrow 
fringes of it next the marsh are frequently killed by the salt water, and 
marsh takes its place. Hon. Joshua Brick, of Port Elizabeth, esti- 
mates the amount of timbered land between Maurice river and West 
ereek, in Cumberland County, which has been killed within the last 
fifty years, at one thousand acres. And the amount is proportionally 
great on all the low and wooded shores. Numerous islands (spots of 
hard ground surrounded by salt marsh) which, within the memory © 
men now living, have been cultivated, and others which were in wood, 
have been entirely lost in the advancing marsh, and their location 1s 
only to be known by the shallowness of the mud which covers them. 
_ Inall the salt marshes on the sea shore of southern New Jersey, 
nd also in the salt and fresh tide marshes on Delaware Bay and river, 
stumps of trees, of the common species of the country, are found with 
2 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
