William Kitchell said:
To think that this white cedar lived to witness nearly 11 centuries of Pine Barrens history. Amazing. Dr. Beesley also attested to a 500 year old tree beneath this one. It is humbling to contemplate that there are centuries upon centuries of forest lost beneath our feet.
The father of Uniformitarianism, the great Charles Lyell, reported Dr. Beesley's discovery in his Travels in the United States. To be sure, no flood of Noah can account for the sunken cedar forests of South Jersey. A walk through a cedar swamp is a testament to the fact that these submerged logs and stumps were buried by the same processes that we see at work even now.