Of the oaks, cedar, and beech, of which I have many fine specimens upon the farm, I have not been able to gather any definite data, but it would appear that the growth is exceedingly slow, after a certain term of years. My uncle is very positive that a black oak in the lane and a red cedar near by have not increased materially in growth in the past half-century. He believes the cedar to have “quite stood still,” and this may not be so strange, for it is known to be considerably over one hundred years old. It was a conspicuous roadside tree in 1802. It measures but eighteen inches in diameter. ----- Footnote 1: Since the above was written, one of these pines has been felled, and the rings of annual growth carefully counted. They are sixty in number, which accords with the history given above of the planting, now nearly fifty-five years ago. It may be well to add that, while each ring is distinctly defined, there are several much larger than the others, and a general increase of the width of the rings upon the southeastern side of the trunk. ----- Fossil Man in the Delaware Valley. The modest, peaceful valley of the Delaware River, from the head of tide-water southward, is as little suggestive of the Arctic Circle, for at least nine months of the year, as do its low and weedy banks in summer suggest the tropics. On the contrary, every tree, shrub, sedge, beast, bird, or fish that you see above, about, or within it is a feature of a strictly temperate climate. Nevertheless, a dim recollection of more stirring times still clings to it, and the year not unfrequently opens with the river firmly ice-bound. Over its shallows are often piled great masses of up-river ice, borne hither after a storm by the swollen current. Often the broad and shallow channel is effectually closed, and the river becomes, for the time being, a frozen lake. But the ice, of late centuries, has not been able to hold its own for any significant length of time. The increasing warmth of the sun, and the south winds with their accompanying rains, soon start the little icebergs oceanward, or melt them when they are securely stranded. Except a few scattered masses along the shady shores, the river, by April, is a quiet, shallow, tide-water stream again. No appreciable amount of detritus is now brought from the up-river region by a single winter’s accumulation of ice. As the river and its shores are to-day, so they were a century ago—perhaps for many centuries; but the winter of our varying year is a mere puppet-show compared with what New Jersey winters once were, and the culmination of arctic rigors gave our Delaware Valley, in that distant day, a far different aspect; and, with each succeeding glacial flood, more and more sand, gravel, and great bowlders were rolled down from the rock-ribbed valley beyond and spread upon the open plain through which the present stream unruffled flows.