hold of some rocks on the bottom, it boldly defies the force and action of the water. These Cypresses
on the Rio Bravo, commencing at the month of the Salado, extend as far down as Beaver Islands, just
below Roma, where they make their last appearance in the channel on the Mexican side, footing in
water from 14 to 15 feet in depth."
On the east, its range extends through Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and
Florida, turning by Alabama and Louisiana up the Mississippi. Beyond Norfolk, its limits coincide exactly
with those of the Pine barrens, and in the Carolinas and Georgia it occupies a great part of the swamps
which border the river after they have found their way from among the mountains and have entered the
low lands.
East Florida is similar in its aspects to the maritime parts of the Southern States, except that the soil
is in general more uniform ; hence the long-leaved Pine and the Cypress are accompanied by less variety of
trees, and are, consequently, more abundant—the one on the low grounds and the other on the uplands.
History.—The genera Sequoia, Taxodinm, and Glyptostrobus arc most nearly allied to each other in
structure, and they are also most closely associated with each other in their history during past geological
epochs. They form a natural group, the Taxodinece, which passed the flower of its existence in the last
times of the chalk, and in the tertiary, more especially the Miocene epoch. The Cunninghamias, which
are also allied to them, appeared first, then the Sequoias, and, lastly, the Taxodia and Glyptostrobi. During
these epochs, many species flourished which have left their remains in various parts of Europe, Greenland,
and North America: all are now extinct with one or two exceptions ; and even the genera have all
but vanished. There only remain one or two modern representatives of each genus, and each of these
<>-encra, with the exception of Taxodinm, is confined with its species to a very limited space—the Cunningkamias
and Glyptostrobi to Japan and China, and the Sequoias to about 120 miles in California. A few
occur in the southern hemisphere, which form the genus Arthrotaxis ; but none are now to be found in
Europe or the extreme northern parts of America, where they formerly abounded. The whole group is
verging to extinction. In them we probably see the lingering remains of an antient type about to disappear
from the face of the globe.
The family of Taxodinece (including in it for the present purpose the allied genus Cunninghamia)
underwent, in antient geological times, a succession of phases of development. According to the observations
of M. Saporta, first one type appeared, and after flourishing and continuing dominant for a time, gradually
diminished and gave its place up to another without, however, wholly disappearing. It was about the middle
of the chalk epoch that the Cunninghamias and Sequoias first appeared; and after having given rise,
during several consecutive periods, to a rich collection of forms, they declined in their turn in Europe at
the moment when Taxodinm and Glyptostrobus began to spread, only to disappear themselves from our
Continent towards the end of the tertiary epoch; and it is to be observed that Taxodinm, as it appeared
latest, also occupies a greater extent of surface at the present day than its more antient predecessors.
The Sequoias and Cunninghamias, the first in order of date respectively, are confined now to a comparatively
diminutive area in California, China, and Japan.
The most widely spread species of Taxodium in these antient epochs was one first named Phyllites
dubius by Sternberg, and afterwards Taxodites dubius by Unger, Goeppert, and subsequent authors.
When these generic names were made to receive it, it was supposed that everything found in the formation
where they occurred must, of necessity, be distinct from modern types ; and when a fossil form was met
with which looked like an existing one, its similarity was acknowledged by giving it a name like that of the
latter, but a different termination, indicating that it was fossil. Thus, a fossil Pinus was named Pinites, a
fossil Abies, Abietites—and a fossil Taxodium, Taxodites. This practice has, however, now been broken
through, chiefly by the instrumentality of Professor I leer of Zurich, who, inter alia, in his " Flora Tertiaria
Helvetica," has recognized the Taxodites dubius as being positively nothing but a Taxodium—the fossil
remains
remains at his disposal having enabled him to examine and identify every part of the plant. It is very
close to the Taxodium distichum of the present day, and was widely distributed in the tertiary epoch,
especially in the middle and upper Miocene. It has been met with in tertiary formations at Schossnetz,
near Breslau, by Professor Goeppert; at Assingen, in Switzerland, by Professor Heer ; and in the
south of France (Armissan and Peyrac) by M. Gaston de Saporta.
Whether that species be really distinct from the Taxodium distichum or not, there is no doubt that
fossil remains of the latter are abundant in the quaternary or recent deposits of the marshy districts in which
it now lives. It there grows directly above the remains of the same species entombed in the deposits of
clay and mud on which it stands. The shifting and encroachments of the Mississippi on either side are
constantly sapping away the banks; and as they fall in under the force of the current, the exposed strata of
mud shew successive growths of these and other trees at different heights in the clayey cliff. Sir Charles
Lyell, in his " Second Visit to the United States," vol. ii. p. 192, tells us that in certain places where the
bank of the Mississippi consisted of fine stiff clay, he saw here and there the buried stools of Cypresses and
other trees in an upright position, with their roots attached, sometimes repeated at several different levels in the
face of the same bank. He adds the following explanation of this curious fact:—" Suppose," says he, "an
antient bed of the Mississippi, or some low part of the plain, to become fit for the growth of the Cypress,
yet to be occasionally flooded so that the soil is slowly raised by fine mud, drift wood, or vegetable matter
like peat. As the Cypress often attains to the age of three or four centuries, and, according to many
accounts, occasionally, in Louisiana, to that of two thousand years, it is clear that the bottoms of the oldest
trees will often be enveloped in soil several feet deep before they die and rot down to the point where they
have been covered up with mud. In the meantime, other trees will have begun to grow on adjoining spots
at different and considerably higher levels, and eventually some of these will take root in soil deposited
directly over the stump or decayed trunk of some of the first or oldest series of Cypresses. They who
have studied the delta affirm that such successive growths of trees are repeated through a perpendicular
height of 25 feet, without any change occurring in the level of the land."
Dr M. W. Dickeson and Mr A. Brown, in speaking of the same subject, say that the Cypress brakes
or basins, which fill up gradually, give place at length to other lumber ; but, before this happens, the buried
Cypress stumps often extend through a deposit of vegetable and sedimentary matter 25 feet thick. " Sections
of such filled-up Cypress basins, exposed by the changes in the position of the river, exhibit undisturbed,
perfect, and erect stumps, in a series of every elevation with respect to each other, extending from highwater
mark down to at least 25 feet below, measuring out a time when not less than ten fully-matured
Cypress growths must have succeeded each other, the average of whose age could not have been less than
400 years, thus making an aggregate of 4000 years since the first Cypress tree vegetated in the basin.
There are also instances where prostrate trunks of huge dimensions are found embedded in the clay,
immediately over which are erect stumps of trees, numbering no less than 800 concentric layers."
These gentlemen also state that at the bottom of all the Cypress swamps or brakes there is found
a peculiar layer of tenacious blue clay, which forms the foundation or floor on which the vegetable
matter accumulates. Sir C. Lyell concludes, therefore, that as the roots of the Cypress penetrate
far beneath the soil, and project horizontally far and wide, those of one tree interlacing with another,
such root-bearing beds of argillaceous loam would be very analogous to what are called fire clays, so well
known to the geologist, as occurring underneath almost every seam of coal in the antient carboniferous
rocks.
Dr Bennet Dowler, of New Orleans, also, as quoted by Dr Seeman in his " Botany of the Voyage
of II.M.S. Herald," p. 335, from an investigation of the successive growths of Cypress forests around
that city (the stumps of which are still found at different depths directly over-lying each other), from the
great size and age of the trees, and from the remains of Indian bones and pottery found below the roots
of some of these stumps, arrived at the conclusion that the human race existed in the delta of the
[ 30 ] E Mississippi