Litchfield enquirer., 1881-09-01
From the N. Y. Evening Post, The Sunken Forests of New Jersey.

A. delphia to the Atlantic Ocean and it cuts off to the southward about One-third of the state of
 New Jersey with an area of some twenty-five hundred square miles. As whole this part of the state is on it's surface sterile and monoto
 nous. On the east wide marsh fringes the ocean cut by system of salt water sounds and by hundreds of tidal channels SO intricate and may that only the old watermen know their ins and outs. The marsh rises west tward into low timber lands succeeded by long stretch of arid soil covered with brushwood and reaching seventy miles southward to Cape May. On the Delaware side the tract slants down into lowland and swamps relieved only by the rich soils and neat farms of Salem county. Probably three.fourths of the whole region is uncultivated, and even along the railroads the outlook is somb:e and barren
 But the harsh surface above has a redeeming quality below. In geological interest it is matched probably by no region this side of the Bad Lands of the Yellowstone. It's mari beds and it's alluvial deposits generally teem with signs which mark immense changes of eleva- tion, strata or soil, and it is peculiarly rich in fossils of both marine and land types But, after the marl beds, none of the geological features are more instructive and curious than the great cedar swamps ot which the town of Dennisville, in Cape May county, is the cen- tre. and, in commercial sense, the product.
 The traveller to Dennisville leaves the cars and crowd of gay Cape May pleasure.seek. ere at Woodbine, 8 little station on the West Jersey Railroad. A four mile ride through dense underbrush, clouded by mosquitoes of vast penetration and blue-headed horse.f flies as big as mble-bees, will bring him to his journeys end. He will find Dennsville a sprawling dingy township of three thousand in- habltants, with it's central group ofhouses on causeway between two great swamps. The
 wet lands around are covered partly by solid growtbs of white cedar, partly by thick water
 weeds and partly by stumps and fallen logs of immense size. These are only the surface indications of the wealth below The swamps covering ten square miles are underlaid by sunken forests which grew hundreds and thousands of years ago. The seeming worse than barren wastes, for which the sharpest of Yankee farmers would deem fifty cents an acre swindling price, have been worth by the acre their hundreds of dollars They have turned their own desolation into hive of industry, built up a lively village, and made an addition, as legitimate as it is uniuue to the wealth of the country.
 The huge trees which lie under the swamp to unknown depths are of the white cedar va riety, and eyergreens, known scientifically as the Cypressus Thuyoides. They grew years ago ih the fresh water which is necessary for their sustenance and when, in time, either by a subsistence of the land or a rise of the seas, the salt water reached them, they died in great numbers. But many of them, ere they died, fell over as living trees and were covered slowly by the deposits of muck and peat which fill the swamp. These trees that fell over by the roots, and known as ''windfalls'' 70 distinguish them from the ''break- downs" are the ones most sought for commercial uses, and they are found and worked as follows: The log-digger enters the swamp with sharp ened iron rod. He probes in the soft soil un- til he strikes tree, probably two or three feet below the surface. In few minutes he finds the length of the trunk, how much still remains firm wood and at what place the first knots, which will stop the straight 'split" necessary for shingles, begin. Still using his prod like the divining- rod of magician, he manages to secure chip, and by the smell knows whether the tree is windfall or break down. Then he inserts in the mud sawlllke that used by ice cutters, and saws through the roots and muck until the log is reached The tops and roots are thus sawn of, ditch dug over the tree, the trunk loosened, and soon the great stick, sometimes five ana siA feet thick, rises and floats on the water, which quickly fills the ditch almost to the surface. The log is next sawed into lengths two feet long, which are split by hand and worked ln- to shingles as well as into the slaves used for pail and tubs. The wood has coarse grain which splits as straight as an arrow, The shingles made from it last from sixty to seventy years, are eagerly sought for by bull. ders in southern New Jersey, and command in the market much higher price than the or. dlnary shingles made of pine or chestnut In color the wood Of the white cedar is delicate pink, and 1t has strong flavor, resembling that of the red cedar used in making lead pen cis. The trees once fairly buried under the swamp never become water logged, as is shown by their floating in the ditches as soon as they are pried up, and, what is more sim gular, as soon as they rise they turn invari. ably under sides uppermOst These two facts are mysteries which science has thus far left so The men who dig the logs up and split them earn their money. The work is hard, exactlng, beside lusty manual labor, skill and experience, the swamps are soft and treacher. ous, no machinery can be used, and long stretches of mud and water must be covered with boughs or bark before the shingles can reach the village and civilization.
 { The number of trees which lie below the surface of the ten square miles of swamp is almost countless. In many places the probe will be sunk many times before it fails to strike log. As the wo:kmen only dig for those near the surface, and none but the best trees are selected, 1t is certain that only small fraction of the logs have been exhumed since 1919, when the industry first sprang up. The supken forests lie in all shapes. Some l times the trees are found parallel, as though wind blowing from one quarter had felied them. But usually they lie pointing in every ! direction, and when, as occasionally happens,