The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-04
CEDAR MINING IN JERSEY.
Digging Up Good Logs That Have
Been Buried for Ages.


Been Buried for Ages.
Dennisville, N. j.. Letter in New York
Press.
The mining of cedar has been an indus
naae mining in fhe World Yet Rery lit
nbe mas and ever then oen gyen 10 s e
have appeared in the papers. but they APP
parently attracted very. little attention.
When one speaks of mining cedar the
impression usually is that petrified cedar is
meant 1t is nothing of the sort. Ages and
muftitudinous branches in the breezes about
Cape. May They were superb monarchs of
their death in some violent manner. They
fell PROSTATE perhaps through the agency
some tremendous earthquake
At all events they did not rot away, but
were laid low in their prime, these stall
Wart cedarS. one theory is that the forest
was once of wide extent, and that it stood
In lake or swamp of fresh water. Them
Dening, biologists of standing, .either the
half submerged land on which the forests
stood sank lower and the trees collapsed
into the lake or the swamp. or else the sea
burst the barrier which had separated it
from the trees and, rushing down upon
them, wreaked widespread destruction.
Possibly the tumult of the inrushing ocean
was sufficient to overturn the gigantic
trees by the force of the waves and by the
undermining of their roots but they may
have been done to death in more gradual
way-by the destruction of their life at the
roots by salt water Down they all went,
however, into the soft muck in which their
roots were embedded. sinking deeper by
reason of their tremendous weight The
mold of centuries of leaves closed over
them, as if they had been babes in the
woods, and the festive plesiosaurus and the
fe f knew them NO
well, and if trees have any sense of feel
inc and subtle inner consciousness, the
grim old fellows must have thought lit all
up with them" But it was not so to be-
The resurrection time began away back
in the year 1872, when some prosaic South
<Jerseymen, delving the earth. hit upon
cedar log and hauled it out to the light of
day. To the surprise of every one it was
found to be in fine state of preservation
1t had been successfully protected from de-
cay by the peculiar qualities of the soil
about, one of the strange accidents of ma
and then. 1t did not take long for the ma
tives to reason that there might be more
they went about plunging iron rod into
the soil. When the iron struck some
thing hard, and after they had satisfied
themselves that the substance was wood
and not stone, they attacked the earth
with their shovels and soon had another
cedar. laid bare. Practically the same pro-
cess is pursued to this day. and thousands
of feet of excellent timber have been pro-
cured since the mining of cedar began
The trees often lie over one another, and
sometimes in heaps, as dead men lay
some of the battlefields of the civil war.
striking wood One or two little jabs
into the soft soil oftentimes suffice to To-
cate log. When the prod Strikes the log
the miner chips off piece with the sharp
point of the tool, which brings the splinter
to the surface when drawn out of the muck
BY the appearance of this chip the ex-
perienced miner can at once tell whether
the log is sound rotten. If it is sound
he at once falls to work to prod up and
down its length. until he has determined
how long it is. This ascertained, he goes at
the, mining He works a saw similar to
those used in cutting ice down into the
earth sewers the tree near the roots and
also at the top. The log is then ready to be
raised. A ditch is dug down to the log the
trunk is loosened by the cant hooks, and it
rises with the water to the surface of the
ditch A very odd thing happens to the
logs when they rise to the surface-they in
variably turn bottom side up in the water.
To haul the log off to the mill is then a
very simple matter.