GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. gj 



SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES. 



GEOLOGY AND MUSTERALOGY. 



ON ELEVATIONS AND DEPRESSIONS OF THE EARTH IN NORTH AMERICA, BY 

 ABRAHAM GESNER, M.D., F.G.S. 



{From the Journal of the Geological Society, November 1861) 



United States. — Commencing at New Jersey, in the United States the 

 writer has examined nearly all the most interesting parts of the coasts, as 

 far northward as the northern part of Labrador. The whole south-eastern side 

 of New Jersey, where it borders upon the Atlantic, to the extent of 100 miles in 

 length and about 20 miles in breadth, is composed of alternate strata of sand, 

 greensand, marl, and clay, some of the beds very highly fossiliferous. The land 

 is comparatively low, and slopes gradually from the high lands in the rear 

 towards the sea. A similar tract of country occurs in the bordering State of 

 Maryland, and, still further southward, in North Carolina. 



The oldest inhabitants of New Jersey, whose lives have been extended to up- 

 wards of eighty years, maintain that within a period of sixty years the sea 

 has risen upwards of four feet, or what is equivalent thereto, the coast 

 has fallen to that depth. Marshes that were formerly mowed for their grass are 

 now submerged ; the sea has encroached upon the land, even over the sites of 

 ancient habitations. There are tracts where trees are seen growing upon fallen 

 forests, which have been buried in sand and peat. Timber of excellent descrip- 

 tion is dug out of the present marshes. The amount of depression along this 

 coast is variously estimated as being from 5 to 12 feet. 



From these and other facts which might be quoted, it appears that there are 

 marine Cretaceous deposits, and over them Pleistocene deposits with freshwater 

 shells and Mastodon bones, apparently an old forest buried in sand, with the re- 

 mains of another growing over it — these two being under the sea in some places 

 and therefore proving submergence of a land-surface, — and that this submer- 

 gence is still going on, according to the testimony of the inhabitants and the 

 submergence of habitations. 



In the harbour of Nantucket, there is a submarine forest. In dredging tho' 

 estuary. Lieutenant Prescott found trunks and roots of the cedar, oak, maple, 

 and beech, some of them standing upright and still attached to the soil on wliich 

 they flourished. Excepting the cedar, all the woods are still sound. The trees 

 are partially buried in sand, and are eight feet below the level of the lowest tide. 



A similar submarine forest exists at Holme's Hole, on Martha's Vineyard. 

 On the west side of the harbour, stumps of trees are found standing upon a level 

 surface beneath the water ; another woody tract occurs near the south-west 

 extremity of the Vineyard, and on the north side of Cape Cod, opposite Yar- 

 mouth : the latter extends more than three miles into Barnstable Bay. At Port- 

 land a similar sinking of the land has been clearly made out. In none of these 



Vol. VII. F 



