The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-11-10
MINING CEDAR TREES.

The Fallen ana uDmbrgeu rOrests III tho
Southern Part of New Jersey.
The fallen and submerged cedar
forests of this part of New jersey, which
were discovered first beneath the Dem
nisville swamps seventy-five years ago.
still afford employment to scores OF peo-
pie in their excavation, and are source
of constant interest to biologists. There
are ding at the present day no such
immense specimens of the cedar any,
where in the country as are found en-
bedded deep in the muck OF the Dennis
vile swamps Some of the trees that
that have been unearthed are six feet in
diameter, and trees four feet through
are common.
Although ages must have passed since
these great forests fell and became COW
cred many feet beneath the surface,
such trees as fell, according to the gen.
eral theory, while yet living trees, are
as sound to-day as the day they were
uprooted. These trees are called wind
falls, 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 evidently
bad 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 a fresh-water lake or swamp, the ac-
ton of which was necessary to their ex-
istence. According to Mr.. Clarence
Deming and DIR. Maurice Beaseley,
eminent geological authorities of South
ern New Jersey, the sea either broke in
upon the swamps or the land subsidized,
and the salt water reached the trees.
This destroyed the life of many of them,
and in time the great windfall came and
levelled 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
Jersey. 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
exceedingly simple. The log digger
enters the swamp and prods in the soft
soil with long, sharp iron rod. The
trees lie 50 thickly beneath the surface
that the rod can not be pushed into the
muck before it strikes log. This done,
the miner soon informs himself rs 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 a breakdown
or q windfall, and, if it is the latter, he
proceeds at once to raise the log. He
works a saw, similar to those used by
ice cutters. down through the mud and
saws the log in two as near the roots as
necessary. The top is next sawed off,
and then the big cellar stick is ready to
be released from it's resting place. A
ditch is dug down to the log, the trunk
is loosened, 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 a
delicate flesh color One of the mys-
teres is that none of the trees are ever
found to be water-logged in the slight
est degree. 1t is impossible to tell how
many layers deep these cedars lie III 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 cedars may be seen lying one on
top of another in great heaps. No tree
has been removed from the Dennisville
swamp from greater depth than three
feet, but they have been found
at a great 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 a swamp area. 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
well. struck one of the trees when tho
drill was almost ninety feet in the
earth. 1t was lying in an alluvial de-
post similar to the Dennisville marsh.
Another one was found at Cape MAY
twenty feet below the surface, and
third as depth of seventy feet These
logs were all of enormous size What
1t is i'll the amber-cotored swamp water
and red muck at Dennisville that pre-
serves 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 a mystery that scientific
men have as yet been unable to solve.
-DennisUtlle en- ~ Cor. N Y. Sun.
tho -, A.