GEOLOGICAL AGE AND FORMATION. 37 



across the marsh from the ponds to the creek. Nothing 

 but mud and grass roots were met in digging the ditch. 

 From the size of the ponds, a large quantity of water neces- 

 sarily passed through the ditch at every tide. The noise 

 made by the violent rush of the water gave the name of 

 Roaring Ditch to the outlet ; and the wear of the banks 

 soon changed it from its original narrow dimensions to a 

 large channel, seventy or eighty feet wide, and from one to 

 four feet deep at low water ; and, what is very remarkable, 

 is, that the whole bottom of the passage is thickly set with 

 pine, cedar, and gum stumps. Some of these are laid bare 

 at low water, and others are covered with several feet of 

 water. They stand upright, aiid there is every indication 

 they are in the spot where they grew. 



Judge Goffe relates, that, in digging a ditch through one 

 of the shallow tide-ponds, under the mud were found mag- 

 nolia and huckleberry roots ; then four feet of mud, beneath 

 which were found large pine stumps ; and when the ditch 

 came to be worn or dug still lower, white cedar snags were 

 found four or five feet under those of pine. The cedar 

 snags were standing, and there were four or five feet of 

 water on them at low tide. 



§ The wearing away of the shores wherever exposed to 

 the action of the tides is not uncommon in other localities ; 

 but it is so rapid on most of the shores of this county, that 

 it may be fairly considered an effect of this subsidence. 



On the side towards the Atlantic, the upland is protected 

 by the salt-marsh and the beaches; but the beaches them- 

 selves are rapidly wearing. Hundreds of acres of flat or 

 sloping sands are now to be seen where a few years since 



