In a Sea-side Forest. 187 



accounts of America's earliest visitors, and wonder 

 how it was possible that they should have been so 

 deceived ; but the truth dawns upon me when I 

 recall these early writers and see the wondrous 

 conditions obtaining on this sea-side island. The 

 least that can be truthfully said is rather a descrip- 

 tion of Florida than of New Jersey, and would 

 give no true idea of the State as a whole. 



This little island, I take it, is a relic of old New 

 Jersey : this forest a living fragment of that now 

 buried one, not far away, which has " given rise to 

 a singular industry, — the literal mining of timber. 

 At several points . . . enormous quantities of 

 white cedar, liquidambar, and magnolia logs, 

 sound and fit for use, are found submerged in the 

 salt marshes, sometimes so near the surface that 

 roots and branches protrude, and again deeply 

 covered with smooth meadow sod. Many of the 

 trees overthrown and buried were forest giants. 

 In the great cedar swamp . . , the logs reach a 

 diameter of four, five, and even seven feet, and 

 average between two and three feet in thickness." 



In one case, one thousand and eighty rings of 

 annual growth have been counted ; and under this 



