950 TREES IN SALT MARSHES. [CHAP. XVIII. 



raised &quot;by fluviatile sediment, as in a delta, a new forest grew up 

 over the ruins of the old one. 



I have said that the decay of such timber is slow, for I saw 

 cypresses at Hopeton, which had been purposely killed by girdling 

 or cutting away a ring of bark, which stood erect on the borders 

 of the rice grounds after thirty years, and bid fair to last for 

 many a year to come. It does no small credit to the sagacity 

 of Bartram, the botanist, that he should have remarked, when 

 writing in 1792, that the low, flat islands on the coast, as well 

 as the salt marshes arid adjoining sandy region, through which 

 so many rivers wind, and which afford so secure a navigation for 

 schooners, boats, and canoes, may be a step in advance gained 

 by the continent on the Atlantic in modern times. &quot; But if so,&quot; 

 he adds, &quot;it is still clear that, at a period immediately preceding, 

 the same region of low land stretched still farther out to sea.&quot; 

 On the latter subject his words are so much to the point, as to 

 deserve being quoted : 



&quot; It seerns evident, even to demonstration, that those salt 

 marshes adjoining the coast of the main, and the reedy and 

 grassy islands and marshes in the rivers, which are now over 

 flowed at every tide, were formerly high swamps of firm land, 

 affording forests of cypress, tupelo, magnolia grandiflora, oak, 

 ash, sweet bay, and other timber trees, the same as are now 

 growing on the river swamps, whose surface is two feet or more 

 above the spring tides that flow at this day. And it is plainly 

 to be seen by every planter along the coast of Carolina, Georgia, 

 and Florida, to the Mississippi, when they bank in these grassy 

 tide marshes for cultivation, that they can not sink their drains 

 above three or four feet below the surface, before they come to 

 strata of cypress stumps and other trees, as close together as they 

 now grow in the swamps.&quot;* 



When our canoe had proceeded into the brackish water, where 

 the river banks consisted of marsh land covered with a tall reed- 

 like grass, we came close up to an alligator, about nine feet long, 

 basking in the sun. Had the day been warmer, he would not 



* W. Bartram s Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, 

 &c. London, 1792. 



