Watering Place Pond

[manumuskin]

In harshbergers book "vegetation of the new jersey pine barrens" There is a place mentioned with picture shown on page 143 known as "Watering Place Pond".It is in the lower or east plains and was supposedly a tarn well known to hunters.The only place that I can think of this could be is Governors pond on bombing range road.Can anyone confirm this or is there a poermanent pond in the pine plains that i cannot locate on the aerials?I read this book as a teenager and when i got wheel I took topo maps and scoured the plains and could never find this pond.That was before we had aerials.I still cannot find this pond unless it is governors.The pic shows pine plains immediately behind the pond.This could be looking nw from the present road at governors lower edge.If looking north the tall stand of pines at ponds head would be visible.This old pic has always intrigued me and I am wondering if it is an old photo of Governors or there is a pond somewhere in the plains i do not know about?Perhaps it is an area grown up now that used to be plains back then?
Al

 

[Teegate]

I don't have the book so I can't help.

Guy

 

[oji]

Al, The pictures in the book look a lot like the area. It also mentions the hills beyond the pond. The vegetation is a little taller since 1916.

 

[bobpbx]

I say yes Al, it is the same. Note that the area back then was more true to pine plains form, and check out the water lilies, which I am sure are nowhere near as numerous now.

One of my favorite places too.

 

[manumuskin]

it was probably a lot more inaccessible back then.Shame they made a highway past it and a bombing ranbge next to it.In the 1916 photo it almost could pass for a muskeg bog out on the tundra.There be a spring in those tall pine upostream from the pond.I tried to locate the exact spot but it is not artesian but a very strong seep that changes places with the water table level.I starts quite suddenly but i could not detect any welling up.We have a few artesian springs down here.I don't know of any in the barrens except the fountain at Harrisville that they are now running out at ground levcel so people can't fill their bottles with it.Iron is too strong for me anyway.We have one spring down here that is clear and sweet and spurts up out of the ground about 50 ft from the maurice river.Only sweet spring i know of.
Al
PS
I do seem to remember an artesian spring gushing out of a pipe along the lower mullica when I was young but haven't been able to relocate it though I thought I found the pipe,no water was coming out of it when I found it though.It was river left heading downstream just upstream from constable bridge.Anyone remember it?
Al

 

[Spung-Man]

Manumuskin,

That indeed is Harshberger’s Watering Place Pond. It has since been slightly modified by modern road construction to impound water so as to not dry out, which seemed not to be a problem in Harshberger’s time. Pollen-expert Watts (1979) chose this location for an Ecological Monographs study titled “Late Quaternary vegetation of central Appalachia and the New Jersey Coastal Plain.” He concluded that the pollen record, albeit scant, indicated that the end-of-Ice-Age Pine Barrens was vegetated with spruce, dwarf birch, and tall-herb meadow – park-like tundra. Unfortunately he was unable for find older Pleistocene pollen. Either the Ice Age stuff was poorly preserved or too sparse to leave a good record. From field experience I suggest the latter. Agreed Bob, it is one of the Pinelands’ best sites!

Best,
Spung-Man