The Arizona sentinel., 1886-11-13
MINING CEDAR TREES.
The Fallen and Submerged Forests In the
 Southern Part of New Jersey.

LHc anu SnOmbrRou ih She
 Southern Part of New Jersey.
 The fallen and submerged cedar forests of this part of New Jersey, which were discovered first beneath the Den- nisville swamps seventy-five years ago. stll afford employment to scoresof peO- pie in their excavation, and area source of constant interest to geolog.sts. There are standing at the present day no such immense specimens, of the cedar any where in,the country as are found em- s. hedded deep in the muck of the Dennis vile swamps Some of the trees that that have been unearthed are six feet n :: diameter, and trees four feet through are common.
 Although ages must have passed since these great fores.s fell and became cov- cred many feet beneath the surface, such trees as fell, according to the gen isseral theory, while yet living trees, are as sound to-day as the day they were sa 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 winch 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 sthey were in when they fell.
 The cedar forests, it is thought, grew in fresh-water lake or swamp, the &C., ton of which was necessary to ther ex .istencc. According to Mir, Clarence Deming and -Dr. Maurice Beaseley, eminent geological authorities of South ern New Jersey, the sea either broke in upon the swamps or the land subsided, and the suit 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 1872 the logs have been mined and are an important factor in the local commercial interests of South Jersey. The eedars are cut up into shingles and slaves, and the longevity of articles made from the wood IS shown
 m shingles, tubs, and pails which were made over-ssventy years ago, and which show no signs of decay yet.
 The working of .fcedar mine" is exceedingly simple. The log digger enters the swamp and prods in the soft zsoa with long. sharp iroK rod The trees lie so thickly beneath the surface that the rod can not be pushed into the smHck before it strikes log. This done, the miner soon informs himself as to sthe length of the trunk, and then chips eoff piece which his rod brings up. Blythe smell of this chip the logger can tell whether he has struck a breakdown rr-in,lfa1f oOd # is 4ho 1of bo proceeds at once to raise the log He works 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 of, and dthen the big ce1ar stick is ready to be released from its 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 con- mou red cedar has. The wood is of a delicate flesh color. One of the mys- teries is that none of the trees are ever found to be water-logged in the slight est degree. It tis impossible to tell how many layers deep these cedars lie ill the swamp, but 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 Vet 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 | shas .beensremoYed from the DennisYille | swamp from a greater depth than three | feet,,s but they have been found | at great depth outside the limits | of the swamp, showing not only | the correctness of inc deep-layer theory, | but the great. extent of the ancient | forest outside of swamp area. Near | the shores of the Delaware, nearly eight | miles from Dennisyille, white cedar logs ] have been exhumed from a depth of | twelve feet At Cape May, twenty | miles distant, drillers of an artesian | well. struck one of the trees when the | drill was almost ninety feet in the earth. It was lylng in an alluvial de- posit similar to the Dennisville marsh. | Another one was found at Cape May twenty feet below the surface. and a | third as depth of seventy feet. These {. logs were all of; enormous size. What it is in the amber-coIored swamp water :. and red muck at Dennisville that pre- serves these trees so that after a lapse of centuries their fiber is as clean and smooth as it was when the green | branches ofthe cedars were waving over Sthe swamp is a mystery that scientific :IHeu have as yet been unable to solve. .s-DenitisUitle (N J. Cor. ~. r. Sun :: Among the excellent pictures that - 4l. T.