178 BURIED TREES. [CHAP. XXX. 



of their roots ; their trunks, limbs, &c. lie in all 

 directions about them. But when these swampy 

 forests were growing, and by what cause they were 

 cut off and overwhelmed by the various strata of 

 earth, which now rise near one hundred feet above, 

 at the brink of the cliffs, and two or three times that 

 height, but a few hundred yards back, are inquiries 

 perhaps not easily answered. The swelling heights, 

 rising gradually over and beyond this precipice, are 

 now adorned with high forests of stately Magnolia, 

 Liquidambar, Fagus, Quercus, Laurus, Morns, Ju- 

 ylans, Tilia, Halesia, ^Esculus, Callicarpa, Lirio- 

 dendron? &c.* 



Dr. Carpenter, in 1838, or sixty-one years after 

 Bartram, made a careful investigation of this same 

 bluff, having ascertained that in the interval the river 

 had been continually wearing it away at such a rate 

 as to expose to view a section several hundred feet 

 to the eastward of that seen by his predecessor. 

 I shall first give a brief abstract of Dr. Carpenters 

 observations, published in Silliman s Journal, f 



&quot; About the level of low water, at the bottom of 

 the bluff, a bed of vegetable matter is exposed, con 

 sisting of sticks, leaves, and fruits, arranged in thin 

 horizontal Iamina3, with very thin layers of clay in 

 terposed. Among the fruits were observed the nuts 

 of the swamp hickory (Juylans aquatica) very abun 

 dant, the burr-like pericarp of the sweet gum (Li- 

 quidambar styraciflua), and walnuts, the fruit of 



* Bartram, &quot; Travels in North America,&quot; p. 433. 

 t Vol. xxxvi. p. 118. 



