180 BURIED TREES. [CHAP. XXX. 



buried stumps ; but he informed me, in 1846, that he 

 was mistaken, and that the apparent notches were 

 caused by the gaping open of the bituminised wood, 

 probably after shrinking and drying, of the truth of 

 which I was myself convinced, after seeing the speci 

 mens. That the lowest bed had originally been a 

 real cypress swamp, was proved beyond all doubt by 

 the stumps being surrounded by those peculiar knobs 

 or excrescences called cypress knees, which this tree 

 throws out from its base, when it grows in a sub 

 merged soil. These knees sometimes rise up through 

 the water from a depth of six or eight feet, and are 

 supposed to supply the roots with air, as they are 

 never formed when the cypress grows on dry ground. 

 At the time of my visit, the river was unfortu 

 nately too high to enable me to see the lowest de 

 posit containing the memorials of this ancient forest, 

 the geological interest of which is much enhanced by 

 its having been seen by Bartram, and again by Car 

 penter, extending horizontally over a considerable 

 area. I learnt from several residents at Port Hud 

 son, and from Captain Sellick, who commanded the 

 Rainbow, that last season, when the water was low, 

 the stumps of the buried trees were as conspicuous 

 as ever at the base of the cliff, which has been much 

 undermined by the river since the year 1838, when 

 Dr. Carpenter explored it. The fossil forest was 

 12 feet under water when I landed, but at higher 

 levels I saw the trunks of two trees buried in a ver 

 tical position at different levels, each of them about 

 2^ feet high. I estimated the height of the entire 

 cliff to be about 75 feet, consisting in part of stiff 



