Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-03-16

The Sunken Forest OF New Jersey.
The Northwestern Lumberman gives
the following account of most singu-
lar industry:
Dennisville, four miles south of
WOodbine, the latter on the West Jer-
sey Railway, is a sprawling dingy
township of 5000 inhabitants, with
its central group of houses on cause
way between two great swamps. The
wet lands around are covered partly
by solid growths of white cedar. part
ly by thick water weeds, and partly
by stumps and fallen logs of immense
size. These are only the surface indi-
cations of the wealth below. The
swamps, covering ten square miles, are
underlaid with sunken forests, which
grew hundreds, perhaps thousands of
years ago. These seeming more than
barren wastes, for which the sharpest
of Yankee farmers would deem
fifty cents an acre swind-
ling price, have been worth by
the acre their hundreds of dollars.
They have turned their own desolation
into a hive of industry, built up live
ly village, and an addition, as legiti-
mate as it is Unique, to the wealth of
The country.
The huge trees which lie under the
swamp to unknown depths, are of the
white cedar variety, an evergreen,
known scientifically as the Cupressus
Thyoides. They grew years ago in the
fresh water, which is necessary for
their sustenance, and when, in time,
either by subsistence of the land. or
rise in 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 are
known as windfalls to distinguish
them from the breakdowns. The
trees that are broke off are the
ones most sought for CONNER
cial uses, and they are found and
worked as follows: The log-digger
enters the swamp with the sharpened
iron rod. He probes in the soft soil
until he finds tree, probably two or
three feet below the surface. In a
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 nee
essary for shingles, begin. Still using
his prod, like the divining rod of a
magician, he manages to secure "a chip,
and by the smell he knows wether the
tree is breakdown or windfall. Then
he inserts in the mud saw, like that
used by ice cutters, and saws through
the roots and muck until the log is
reached. The tops and roots thus
sawn off, ditch dug over the tree, the
trunk lOosened, and soon the great
stick, sometimes five or six feet thick,
rises and floats on the water, which
quickly fills the ditch almost to the
surface. The log is next sawn into
lengths of two feet long, which are
split by hand and worked into shingles.
as we'll as into slaves used for pals
and tabs. The wood has coarse grain
and splits straight as an arrow. The
shingles made from it last from sixty
to seventy years, and are eagerly sought
for by builders in Southern New JERSEY.
and command in the market a much
higher price than the ordinary shingles
made of pine or chestnut. In color
the wood of the white cedar is deli
cate pink, and it has a strong flavor
resembling that of the red cedar
used In making lead pencils.
The tree once fairly buried
under the swamp never becomes wa
terlogged, as is shown by their floating
in the bitches as soon as they are pried
up and, what is more singular, as soon
as they rise, they invariably turn I'M
deiside uppermost. These two facts
are mysterious which science has thus
far left so. The men who dig up the
logs and split them, earn their money.
The work is hard, exacting, recurring
Justly manual labor, skill and expert
ence.
Owing to the fact that the swamps
are soft and treacherous, no machinery
can can be used, and long stretches of
Rud and water must be covered with
boughs and bark before the shingles
can reach the village and civilization.
The number of trees below the sur
face of the ten square miles of swamp
is almost countless. In many places
the probe will be sunk many times be-
fore it fails to strike a log. AS the
workmen only dig for those near the
surface, and none but the best trees are
selected, it is certain that only a small
fraction Of the logs have been exhumed
since 1872, when the industry first
sprung up. The sunken forests lie in
all shapes. Sometimes the trees are
fourd parallel, as though wind blow
ing from one quarter had fclled them.
but usually they lie pointing in every
direction, and when. IS occasionally
happens, the wet soil sinks and dries,
the mighty trunks are seen piled upon
each other, as in a Maine log Jam.
What are seen, too, are but the upper
most strata of piles upon piles unseen
below.