138 BURIED TREES. [CHAP. XXX. 



is exactly of the same black mud, or rich soil, as the adjacent 

 low cypress swamps above and below the bluff; and here, in the 

 cliffs, we see vast stumps of cypress and other trees which, at this 

 day, grow in these low, wet swamps, and which range on a level 

 with them. These stumps are sound, stand upright, and seem 

 to be rotted off about two or three feet above the spread 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, Lauras, Morus, Juglans, Tilia, Halesia, 

 JEsculus, Callicarpa, Liriodendron&quot; fyc.* 



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

 made a careful investigation of this same bluf having ascertained 

 that in the interval the river had been continually w r earing it 

 away at such a rate as to expose to view a section several hun 

 dred feet to the eastward of that seen by his predecessor. I shall 

 first give a brief abstract of Dr. Carpenter s observations, published 

 in Sillirnan s Journal.! 



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

 bed of vegetable matter is exposed, consisting of sticks, leaves, and 

 fruits, arranged in thin horizontal laminae, with very thin layers 

 of clay interposed. Among the fruits were observed the nuts of 

 the swamp hickory (Juglam aquoMca) very abundant, the burr- 

 like pericarp of the sweet gurn (Liquidambar styraciflua), and 

 walnuts, the fruit of Juglans nigra. The logs lying horizontally 

 are those of cypress (Cupressus thyoides), swamp hickory, a 

 species of cotton wood (Populus), and other trees peculiar to the 

 low swamps of Louisiana. Besides these there were a great 

 number of erect stumps of the large deciduous cypress ( Taxodium 

 disticlium} sending their roots deep into the clay beneath. This 



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

 t Vol. xxxvi. p. 118. 



