Evening star., 1935-12-08
Forests
Continued From Fifth Page.)

pines and hemlocks had crashed in
Ice-Age tempests before the appear
ance of the first baked clay cities of
Sumeria. But actually it is recent.
The irregular line which separates the
Pleistocene from the Cretacious re-
mains represents 120,000,000 years
leaving out inconsequential fractions
of a thousand human generations,
more or less.
The newer deposits are not without
points of interest to paleontologists
who are comparing them with similar
material obtained when excavations
we're being made for the Government
Printing Office and for the Mayt1ower
Hotel Both these finds excited con-
siderable interest at the time. All
three together afford clues as to the
climatic changes which the District
of Columbia region has undergone in
relatively recent times, speaking
geologically.
Thus, it is obvious, at the time OF
the Northwest Branch Pleistocene
fora the climate was much colder and
dryer than is the case today. Other
wise the hemlock and shagbark would
not have flourished. The Government
Printing Office deposits represented a
slightly warmer period. When the
Mayfower deposit was laid down,
however, the species represented show
either that the climate was conSid-
r,fIa mo
more congeniaIthan that which OBJ
tains In this section Of the country
today. The mussels and insects sieved
out of the Northwest Branch sand
represent species found in the Ana
costa River region today.
How vast the difference between
these two woodlands, now dumped on
top of one another in common grave!
In the 120, 900 900 years that separated
them, love and beauty had come into
the world. There were roses and
towering dogwoods in the new forest.
These, at least, are among the species
identified by Prof Edward w. Berry Of
Johns Hopkins University, one of the
country's foremost experts on fossil
plants, in the Government Printing
Office deposit, which dates from ap-
proximately the same time.
COME claim that North America
- still is in the Ice Ages, just at pres
ent enjoying brief intermission Of
10000 or 10000 years from Arctic
conditions. The greater part of the
material identified by DR.. Berry con-
sisted of fruit, seeds and leaves of the
vomiteria, a species of holly which now
COWS in abundance from Southern
Virginia to Florida, but does not ex-
tend as far north as the District. 1t
evidently was the dominant plant in
the locality at that time. There also
were leaves of beech, sycamore and
sweetgum trees, near relatives of those
which grow here today, Two other
species of holly reach their present
northern limit in Southern Virginia.
The solitary rose was identified as
such on the slender evidence of one
fruit and prickle. They are sufficient,
Prof. Berry maintains, to prove that
IL Wuo q AOoC, buI OiiC SpCNiCo OdLll1Vt
be determined He is certain of the
identity of the Towering dogwood, the
earliest example of this plant ever
recorded. It now largely is confined
to dry woodlands and hillsides. How
it got into an Ice Age swamp cannot
be determined.
Quite different was the flora from
the Mayflower site. There the vege-
tation was that Of cypress swamp
with the dominant fora expresses,
grape vines, elderberry bushes and
sedges. It was such swamp as one
probably would find today only sew
eral hundred miles south of Washing
ton.
The beginning Of the Cretaceous.
when the first Northwest Branch de-
posit was laid down, also probably