The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1886-11-25
WORKING A CEDAR NINE.
RECOVERING SUBMERGED TREES
FROM NEW JERSEY SWAMP.

FROM NEW JERSEY SWAMP.
A Forest Of Big Cedars That Fell
| Ages Ago-Methods of Their Re-
corery-Their Uses.
A Dennisville IN. j. letter to the New
York San says: The fallen and sub
merged cedar forests of this part of New
Jersey, which were discovered first be-
meath the Dennisville swamps seventy
| five years ago, still afford employment to
scores of people in their excavation, and
are source OF constant interest to geol-
ogists. There are standing at the present
daY no such immense specimens of the
cedar anywhere in the country as are
found embedded deep in the muck of
the Dennisville swamps. Some Of the
trees that have been uncovered are six
feet in diameter and trees four feet
through are common.
Although ages must have passed
since these great forests fell and be-
came covered many feet beneath the
surface, such trees as fell, ac-
cording to the general theory, while yet
living trees, are as sound to-day as they
were the day they were uprooted. These
trees arc called windfalls, as it is thought
they were torn up by the roots during
some terrible gale of an unknown past.
Others are found in the muck which are
called break downs, as they were evil
dently dead trees when they fell, and
have been held by the action of the mud
and water in the swamp in the same
stage of decay they were in when they
fell.
The cedar forests, it is thought, grew
in fresh-water lake or swamp, the
action of which was necessary to their
existence. According to Mr.. Clarence
Deming and DR.. Maurice Beasely,
eminent geological authorities of south
ern New Jersey, the sea either broke in
on the swamps or the land subsided,
and the salt water reached the trees.
This destroyed the life of many of them,
and in time the great windfall came and
leve,ed the forest. The trees now lie
beneath the soft soil at various depths,
and ever since 1912 the logs have been
mined and are an important factor in the
local commercial interests of South Jer-
sey. The cedars are cut up into shingles
and slaves, and the longevity of articles
made from the wood is shown in shingles,
tubs, and pals which were made over
seventy years ago, and which show no
signs of decay yet.
The working of "cedar mine" is ex-
ceedingly simple. The log digger en-
ters the swamp and prods in the soft soil
with long. sharp iron rod. The trees
lie so thickly beneath the surface that
the rod cannot be pushed far into the
muck before it strikes log. That done,
the miner soon informs himself as to the
length of the trunk, and then chips .off
piece which his rod brings up. BY
the smell of this chip the logger can tell
whether he has struck breakdown or
windfall, and, if it is the latter, he
proceeds at once to raise the log. He
works q saw similar to those used by ice
cutters, down through the mud and saws
the log in two as near the rootsas neces-
sary. The top is next sawed off, and
then the big cedar stick is ready to be
released from its resting plac'. A ditch
is dug down to the log, the trunk is
loosencd, and it rises up with the water
to the surface of the ditch. A curious
thing is noticed about these logs when
they come to the surface, and that is
that they invariably turn over with their
bottom sides up. The log is sawed into
proper lengths for shingles or slaves,
which are split and worked into shape
entirely by hand. These cedar shingles
command price, much higher than pine
or chestnut shingles.
These ancient cedars are of the white
variety, and have the same strong, aro-
matte fragrance when cut that the COM
mon red cedar has. The wood is of
delicate flesh color. One of the mysteries
is that none of the trees is ever found to
be water-logged in the slightest degree.
1t is impossible to tell how many layers
deep these cedars lie in the swamp, but
it is certain that there are several layers,
and that with all the work that has been
done in the swamp for seventy years the
first layer has not yet been removed. At
some places in the marsh the soil has
sunk for several feet and become dry,
and there the fallen ccdars may b. seen
lying one on top of another in great
heaps. No tree has been removed from
the Dcnnisvillc swamp from greater
depth than three feet, but they have
been found at q greater depth outside
the limits of the swamp, showing not
only the correctness Of the deep-layer
theory, but the great extent of the ancient
forest outside of the swamp arear Near
the shores Of the Delaware, nearly eight
miles from Dennisville, white cedar logs
have been exhumed from depth of
twelve feet. At Cape May, twenty miles
distant, drillers of an artesian we'll struck
one of the trees when the drill was almost
ninety feet in the Garth. it was lying in
an alluvial deposit similar to the Dennis
vile marsh. Another log was found at
Cape May twenty feet below the sur
face, and third at depth of seventy
feet. These logs were all of enormous
size. What it is in the amber-colored
swamp water and red muck at Dennis
vile that preserves these trees so that
after lapse of centuries their fiber is as
clean and smooth as it was when the
green branches of the cedars were waving
over the swamp is mystery that scien-