34 SUBMARINE FOREST. [CHAP. II. 



upright stools of the white cedar ( Cupressus thyoides), showing 

 that an ancient forest must once have extended farther seaward. 

 One of these swamps we passed yesterday at Hampton, on the 

 way from Boston to Portsmouth ; and Mr. Hayes gave me speci 

 mens of the submarine wood in as fresh a state as any occurring 

 a few yards deep in a British peat-bog. 



That some of these repositories of buried trees, though geolo 

 gically of the most modern date, may really be of high antiquity, 

 considered with reference to the history of man, I have no doubt ; 

 and geologists may, by repeated observations, ascertain the min 

 imum of time required for their formation previously to their sub 

 mergence. Some extensive cedar-swamps, for example, of the 

 same class occur on the coast near Cape May, in the southern 

 extremity of the State of New Jersey, on the east side of Dela 

 ware Bay, filled with trees to an unknown depth ; and it is a 

 constant business to probe the soft mud of the swamp with poles 

 for the purpose of discovering the timber. When a log is found, 

 the mud is cleared off, and the log sawed up into proper lengths 

 for shingles or boards. The stumps of trees, from four to five 

 feet, and occasionally six feet in diameter, are found standing 

 with their roots in the place in which they grew, and the trunks 

 of aged cedars are met with in every possible position, some of 

 them lying horizontally under the roots of the upright stumps. 

 Dr. Bresley, of Dennis Creek, counted 1080 rings of annual 

 growth between the center and outside of a large stump six feet 

 in diameter, and under it lay a prostrate tree, which had fallen 

 and been buried before the tree to which the stump belonged first 

 sprouted. This lower trunk was five hundred years old, so that 

 upward of fifteen centuries were thus determined, beyond the 

 shadow of a doubt, as the age of one small portion of a bog, the 

 depth of which is as yet unknown. 



Mr. Hayes drove me in his carriage through woods of fir on 

 both banks of the Piscataqua, where the ground was covered 

 with that fragrant shrub, the candleberry (Myrica cerifem), the 

 wax of which, derived from its shining black berries, is used for 

 making candles. The odor of its leaves resembles that of our 

 bog-myrtle (Myrica gale). The barberry, also (Berberis vul- 



