GEOLOGICAL AND MINERALOGICAL NOTES. 67 



have been identified by Prof. Samuel Henshaw of the Mu- 

 seum of Comparative Zoölogy. 1 These occur from eight- 

 een inches below the surface of the peat to near the bottom. 

 At two feet below the surface of the peat a large bed of 

 coarse stones and roots of the cow lily (JVupha advena) 

 were found, while white pine cones, oak acorns, spruce 

 cones, and roots, logs and stumps of spruce, hemlock, 

 pine and oak were found mixed in great confusion, making 

 the work of removing them very laborious. Immediately 

 below this last deposit occurred numerous stems of a species 

 of grass, probably Phragmites. Occasionally these stems 

 and joints, and also the roots, have become silicified, but 

 still retaining the outer cuticle and showing the character- 

 istic stomata of the grasses. Near the bottom the peat 

 thins out into beds of leaves, including those of nearly all 

 of our common trees and shrubs. Small twigs and branch- 

 es were found well preserved, many of which are as tough 

 and strong as if broken from the living tree to-day. This 

 last nanied and very interesting deposit yields the greatest 

 abundance of spruce and hemlock cones, beech nuts and 

 the empty burrs, chestnuts, hickory nuts, seeds of the 

 hop hornbeam, nutlets of the burr reed (jSparganiwn sp.) 

 and a few oak acorns, besides the seeds of various sedges, 

 grasses, etc. 



Salem harbor furnishes additional evidence of subsid- 

 ence. Oak stumps are often found in the coves, and on 

 the land of Mr. Charles Metcalf in South Salem, near 

 Forest river, are several oak stumps standing in beds of 

 peat. 



1 Professor Henshaw writes : — " With the exceptiou of four vials labelled ' Na- 

 hant,' I have looked over your peat insects. The greater part of the material be- 

 longs to the Carabidse (ground beetles) and Dytiscidae (water tigers). Of the 

 former there are specimens of the genera Cychrus, Platyrus and Pterostichus. 

 Ilybius Hguttalus, one of the Dytiscidae, is the most abundant and characteristic 

 species of the lot as a whole. I have also been able to identify specimens refer 

 able to Gyrinus and there are at least two species of Donacia. I cannot see that 

 the insect remains are any different from what we should find to-day." 



