USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Hingham > History of the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, vol 1 > Part 9
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Notwithstanding the fact stated that since the re-elevation of the land that ushered in the Recent Period, it has remained very nearly stationary, yet there is much to show change, - mostly, however, caused by irruption of the sea and consequent destruction of barriers that protected the land from the waters. Within the memory of the writer a considerable body of peaty matter, sev- eral feet in thickness, rested upon the land below high-water mark in Huit's Cove, which of course was formed there when its whole arca was an inland swamp.
Many Hingham people will remember the peat swamp cut through between Weir River Village and Hull Street when Rock- land Street was laid out and made, and particularly the huge trunks of trees that were found in the peat, some of which may yet be seen along the margin of the road. This whole territory had long been inundated with salt water at high tide, but it needs no argument to show that this could not have been so when the locality was congenial for the growth and development of the plants that formed the peat and the trees that flourished there.
It would be interesting to fix the time when man first appeared in this locality, but this can never be known. It may be sur- mised, however, that it was not long after the commencement of the Modern Era, as he certainly existed upon the continent, and primitive man naturally made his home on the borders of rivers and about the inlets of the ocean, because of the nutriment easily obtained from the waters for his subsistence.
The most that can be learned concerning the earliest inhabi- tants of the territory of Hingham, must be from the relics found in their graves, and from the tools and implements they used, found scattered in the soil, or in shell heaps about their habi- tations. So far as these have been examined there is no evidence of the existence of any race preceding the one found here when the white man first appeared.
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The Geology of Hingham.
Some account of investigations made to learn more than was known of the Indians of Hingham, and some mention of chance discoveries yielding information concerning the animals that were contemporary with them, will now be given.
REMAINS OF AN EARLY PERIOD FOUND IN HINGHAM.
In a shell heap on World's End there were found several years since by Professor Spencer F. Baird, Dr. Thomas M. Brewer, Mr. Francis W. Brewer, and others, bones of the
Goose Fish, - Lophius piscatorius, Linn.,
Cod, - Gadus callarius, Linn.,
with many of unknown fishes.
Birds belonging to several species, large and small, but not recogniz- able.
Deer, - Cariacus virginianus (Bodd), Gray.
Foxes, - Vulpes vulgaris, pennsylvanicus (Bodd), Coues.
Otter, - Lutra canadensis, Turton.
Red Squirrel, teeth of, - Sciurus hudsonius, Pallas.
Beaver, teeth of, - Castor fiber, canadensis (Linn.), Allen.
Besides the bones, there were several pieces of pottery orna- mented by dots and lines.
One deer bone was finely pointed apparently for use as an awl. The most of these relies were found on beds of charcoal.
As the Indian went no farther for food than he could help, it may reasonably be inferred that the animals whose bones are men- tioned were found in the immediate neighborhood.
In 1868 Professor Spencer F. Baird, Professor Jeffries Wyman, Mr. Fearing Burr, Dr. Thomas M. Brewer, and others, including the writer, joined in a party for the purpose of exploration at a known burial-place of the aborigines on the slope of Atlantic Hill near Nantasket Beach. The hill had been much dug away for roadways, and bones had been frequently found there with other relies, such as broken pottery, axes, chisels, etc.
From what had been obtained by previous parties, and from what little was procured by the persons above-mentioned, it was manifest that the burials were comparatively recent. The best evidence that the locality was used as a place of sepulture since the advent of the white man, was the fact that among undoubted specimens of aboriginal art were quite as undoubted specimens of the skill of the European, notably in fragments of brass imple- ments such as kettles or pans. Wishing if possible to examine a burial-field where evidence of greater antiquity would be conclu- sive, the party proceeded to the slope of a declivity, facing south towards Weir River Bay, where numerous circular depressions on
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History of Hingham.
the surface indicated the ancient graves of the Indian. The writer will confess to a feeling somewhat repulsive as we com- menced digging open the resting-places of the dead and exposing their remains to the rude gaze of the alien race that had sup- planted them in the land they loved. This feeling did not how- ever last long, after finding that there were but few human remains to be disturbed ; for nearly all that had composed their corporeal forms in life, the flesh, the sinews, and the bones, had alike been, for a long period perhaps, resolved into their original elements, leaving but few traces behind. There was not found in the first grave opened a single relic of humanity. Much more care was taken in opening the second, the earth being very thinly scraped away as excavation was made downwards, every ounce being closely examined.
In this one, strange to say, a part of the occiput of a skull was soon disinterred, which, however, was too far gone for preserva- tion, and some inches below, teeth of the body that had been placed here ; but not another bone or part of a bone of the whole skeleton. All had disappeared. The burial posture of the dead had been a sitting one, as shown by the fact that at a proper dis- tance from the surface there was found a collection of shells, all of which had been undoubtedly placed about the person in the posture stated.
The investigators had indeed come upon the resting-place, with- out doubt, of such as had lived and died before, and perhaps long before, the foot of the white man impressed itself upon the soil.
In swampy land brought under cultivation by Mr. John R. Brewer on the margin of Weir River a pair of deer's antlers and several rib bones were dug up. The corrugation on the antlers and the basal ring is perfect; the antlers measure in circumference 23 inches, and though the tips and prongs are broken off, their length on the outside curve is 11 inches.
At another locality on Mr. Brewer's land not far from the foot of Martin's Lane, there was dug from low meadow-land, formerly a swamp, a pair of antlers attached to a part of the skull.
A pine cone and several stone implements were found in the same ground not far distant.
The writer has thought it well to state what little he has con- cerning the North American Indian in Hingham, confining himself simply to the fact of his existence upon these shores in the modern era, at a somewhat remote period before the occupancy of the white man, and incidentally mentioning some of the implements used by him in obtaining sustenance, as well as some of the ani- mals that were contemporary with him. What else relates to him, his life in war and in peace, what his association with our fathers, and through what causes he disappeared from the land, - all this belongs to the historian of human events, and it is hoped that he will be able to glean from records of the past much that yet re- mains unknown.
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The Geology of Hingham.
Let us emphasize to our minds some of the changes in the past that we may the more readily appreciate their surprising character.
Those who have followed the writer in his attempt to portray past events in the history of this locality have been led to contem- plate it, at first, only as an undistinguished part of a molten globe wheeling with immense velocity through space about its parent sun, and gradually through countless ages cooling and tending to- wards consolidation.
A second view, millions of years later, though immensely remote in the past from our own period, presents a very different scene. The earth has become incrusted and the land and the waters di- vided ; the atmosphere is hot and murky by exhalations from the surface ; and corrosive rains descend upon the primeval rocks, dis- integrating their substance and washing it into the waters, where it is forming the first sedimentary strata of the planet.
There is no life discernible, for conditions favorable to life do not exist on the gradually developing world.
The third striking view in the order of events long after pre- sents the dry land of our territory limited to the area where now are found the granitic rocks, and this land borders waters of an extensive basin, in which is being slowly deposited the sediment of rivers, and upon this sediment, which is of clayey matter may be seen moving forms of life; for the Period is the Primordial, and trilobites abound in great numbers along the coast margin in its shallow waters.
The next view is yet more striking ; for the whole surface of the land bordering the basins along the coast of the territory now of Hingham and Nantasket is disturbed by violent igneous action, and volcanoes in active operation are pouring from their craters vast floods of lava over large areas of the surface.
Many, very many millions of years more elapse before another glimpse is vouchsafed of this locality. Its characteristics are not distinctly seen, but by a clear view of the landscape of the neigh- borhood and over a vast portion of the land, we recognize that they could not differ from those of the other regions. It is in the great Carboniferous Period, and tropical heat prevails even to the Arctic. The air is heavy with carbon, and gigantic trees and other plants, of a character now known only in the Torrid Zone, grow profusely over the surface.
The next view presented is the marvellous one that has been dwelt upon, that of ice covering not only this territory but extend- ing from the Arctic Circle, far south and east, into the waters of the Atlantic, there dropping off icebergs as is now the case from the margins of the great ice-sheet of Greenland.
We take another and a last retrospective view of the locality destined to be our abode. It is in the early part of the present era. Vegetable and animal life have again spread over the ter- ritory. The Indian roams in the forests hunting deer and other
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animals, and he fishes from his bark canoe in the same waters where are now found the boat and the rod of the white man.
A panorama truly of wonderful scenes, such as well may stagger belief in minds not accustomed to geological research, but which in the main can be as satisfactorily demonstrated as any events in human progress.
If such contemplations incline us to dwell upon the insignifi- cance of Man, we have only to turn our thoughts to his great achievements to be astonished by their grandeur. Compared with the universe of matter, he is indeed, physically, but as a grain of sand, or a mote in the sunbeam, to a revolving world; but as an intellectual and conscious being, he is more than all the mate- rial universe, in the great creation of God. Atom as he is on the earth he inhabits, time and space alike yield to him secrets unrevealed, so far as known, to other created intelligence.
He turns over the strata of the earth as leaves of a book ; reads the record of thousands and millions of years, and the his- tory of the world he stands on is known to him. He directs his thoughts to the distant spheres in the infinitude of space, he weighs them as in a balance. he measures them, and their weight and size are alike revealed to him. He even asks of them their composi- tion, and lo! they answer in letters of light on an instrument of his handiwork. He studies their motions and the velocities of their movements, and predicts with unerring certainty where in the canopy of the heavens they will be found long after his own mortal being shall have crumbled to dust. Well may he exclaim : " Thou hast indeed made man but little lower than the angels. Feeble and weak though he be, yet as the creature of Thy hand, endowed with power to comprehend something of Thy works, by no means to be despised."
MINERALOGY.
BY THOMAS T. BOUVÉ.
IN view of erroneous ideas prevalent in the minds of many, a few remarks of a general character concerning minerals may not be out of place.
It should be understood that mineral bodies are not limited to those of a stony nature, but that they embrace everything of an inorganic character that is found within or at the surface of the earth. This definition therefore includes not only all Rocks, Pebbles, Sands, and Clays, but even Water, and the Gases that form the atmosphere. Temperature alone determines the condi- tion of inorganic bodies so far as relates to their being Solid, Liq- uid, or Gaseous ; and at a low degree Ice is as much a rock as is Granite or any other solid earthy material. Raise the tempera- ture enough and all matter becomes Liquid or Gaseous. No one but admits Quicksilver to be a metal because at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere it remains a fluid.
Not an uncommon thing is it to meet persons who think that stones grow like organized beings ; and often this view is supposed by them to be fully demonstrated by the statement that after plow- ing a field and picking out, as they believe, about all the stones in the soil, they find quite as many as they first did when again plowing the same field a few years later. It is difficult sometimes to convince such persons that they are wrong. Of course there is no such thing as inward development of a stone, as is the case with organic life, and there is no possibility of a pebble or other rock mass in the soil adding one atom to its substance. There is often enlargement, where a rock is forming by accretion, as when hot waters containing carbonate of lime deposit it on that already formed, or when mountain rivulets that have taken up iron from decomposing rocks in their course, deposit this from time to time as a bog ore in marshy grounds. So in caverns, waters saturated with carbonate of lime dripping into them from above, form stalactites and stalagmites, slowly constructing the beautiful columns that are seen in the Mammoth, the Luray, and many other caves of our country.
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History of Hingham.
In all these cases it may in a sense be called growth, but there is no relation between it and the growth of animals and plants. It is increase by additions to the surface.
Thus far mineral bodies have been mentioned. The rocks of the earth are generally composed of aggregations of minerals, as Granite, of Quartz, Orthoclase, and Mica ; and Diorite, of Oligoclase and Hornblende.
Let us now consider briefly what a mineral species is.
A mineral is a homogeneous, inorganic substance, either simple in containing but one element, as Sulphur, Carbon, Gold, Iron, Copper, Quicksilver, and the other native metals, or a compound of elements which have been united by laws as immutable as those that govern the motions of the planets, or any others that act in the universe. To recognize this clearly is to awaken an interest . in inorganic matter that tends to enlarge one's conceptions of the whole material world. The writer will refer to one or two mineral bodies as illustrations of the law of combinations.
Quartz is a compound of two elements, Silicon and Oxygen, united in the proportion of three atoms of Oxygen to one of Sili- con, and these proportions never vary. The resultant substance, Quartz, or pure Silica, can and does unite as an acid with very many bases, which in relation to it act as alkalies, forming the greater portion of all known minerals; and these unions are always governed by the law of definite proportions.
Take Carbon. This appears as a native mineral in the Dia- mond ; but it appears also combined with Oxygen, forming Car- bonic Acid, in the proportion of one atom of Carbon to two of Oxygen. This Carbonic Acid, in its turn, unites with a large number of basic substances, forming carbonates of Iron, Copper, and very many others, always in definite proportions. Nothing more can be said here of the chemical unions by which minerals are produced ; but something must be added relative to the law of crystallization, by which particles of the mineral as formed are drawn together, and led to arrange themselves in crystals such as we see in nature. No one can behold these beautiful objects without admiration, and this is greatly increased in those who know something of the forces which lead to their development. Crystals of the mineral species have been rightly characterized as the flowers of the inorganic world. To have some idea of their formation, let the reader's mind consider the phenomena attend- ing the cooling of a hot saturated solution of any salt. As the water loses its heat, the particles of salt, in forming, will at once by attraction be drawn together, and the molecules will arrange themselves by the law of crystallization in well-defined forms, - if common salt, in cubes ; if alum, in octahedrons. If the water contains several salts, one will be found generally to have a ten- dency to crystallize before the others, and may be thus formed about any substance placed in the solution ; and subsequently crys-
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tals of the others will form upon the first and adhere to it, and these in turn will have others added to them.
Let us now consider what has been going on in nature. Fis- sures have been formed, by earthquake action or otherwise, extend- ing upwards through the rocky strata; and the hot waters of thermal springs, holding in solution mineral elements dissolved from the rocks in deep recesses of the earth, have risen upwards, and losing more or less of their heat as they passed through the colder rocks towards the surface, have deposited minerals upon the walls, one species often succeeding another. Thus were de- posited the magnificent crystallizations of Quartz, Fluor Spar, Galena, Carbonate of Lime, and other species from Cumberland and Derbyshire in Great Britain, specimens of which may be seen in the Hingham Public Library.
Minerals are not only found to have been produced in liquid solutions containing their elements, but they are also produced whenever a molten condition of matter allows of the free move- ment of its particles ; consequently the elements of an igneous rock, as they cool in coming to the surface, will tend to aggre- gate themselves according to their chemical affinities, and to arrange themselves in crystals ; but the cooling being generally too rapid for this, we have, as in granite, only an aggregation of im- perfect crystals.
With these very general remarks upon minerals, intended only as a very partial presentation of the matter, the writer will call attention to the few that are found in Hingham. The larger portion of these have been already mentioned in the Geology of the town as constituents of the rocks, namely, Quartz, Miea, Hornblende, Augite, Orthoclase, and Oligoclase.
Quartz may be otherwise referred to than as a component part of a rock, as it appears forming veins in every part of the town ; and in cavities of these veins have been found some beautiful but small crystals of Amethyst, which is a variety of Quartz.
Jasper, another variety of the same mineral species, is found at Rocky Neck, as stated in the Geology of that locality.
Other minerals, not of the Quartz family, are -
Pyrite (Sulphide of Iron), which often appears in small cubic crystals in the Trap rocks.
Chalcopyrite (Sulphide of Copper), which has been found dis- seminated in a vein of Quartz.
Molybdenite (Sulphide of Molybdenum), observed in small scales in granite blasted from a ledge on the line of the Nantasket Rail- road, near Weir River.
Epidote, often found at and near the junction of Trap with Granite, sometimes exhibiting slight crystallization. It also occurs, of an impure character, in veins at Rocky Neck.
Calcite (Carbonate of Lime), found in digging a ditch on the line of and near Burton's Lane, where some rock was blasted
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History of Hingham.
below the surface having veins of Calcite. Specimens may be seen in the Geological Collection of the Public Library. One of them is a good example of vein structure. The rock is a decom- posed Diabase. Calcite is also found as pebbles in the Conglom- erate rock of Huit's Cove.
Limonite (Bog Iron Ore), which has been dug up in consider- able masses from the low land of Mr. Francis W. Brewer, near Great Hill. Specimens of this may be seen in the collection of the Public Library.
It may be confidently stated that there are no indications of mineral deposits in any part of the town that would justify exploration.
NOTES ON ANIMAL LIFE.
BY THOMAS T. BOUVÉ.
THERE was in the minds of many people of the town a desire that not only its geology and botany should be presented in the proposed history, but that an account of its animal life should be given. The full accomplishment of such an undertaking would have required the labor of a large corps of naturalists many years, and the expense would have been enormous. To do this was therefore impracticable.
Inasmuch, however, as considerable changes have been going on in the fauna of the territory within the present century, and more may be expected in the future, the writer, to meet the probable wishes of the living as well as those of future generations who may seek to know what forms of life have been and passed away, has thought it desirable to mention a few that were contemporary with the inhabitants of the town in a past period and are not now to be found, or which were common and are now seldom scen. The rare visits of some species never resident here will also be alluded to.
So far as relates to marine life a few general remarks may not be superfluous before referring to any species that live or have lived in the waters of the harbor.
The encircling arm of Hull as it stretches itself far out in the ocean from the main land, shelters the harbor of the town from the heavy seas that often prevail outside that barrier, and thus exerts a considerable influence upon its fauna and flora, inasmuch as many forms of life, both animal and vegetable, which naturally exist in the sands and upon the exposed rocks of the open sea, find no home in the more placid waters within. While this influ- ence is generally of a character to lessen the number of species of invertebrate animals and of marine plants found on the shores of the town, it may also be said that some few are protected that would perish if exposed to the full action of the storms that strike the outer coast. The results are that very few of the mollusks which strew the beach at Nantasket after a storm have ever been found within the limits of the harbor of Hingham. On the other
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History of Hingham.
hand, without the sheltering protection of the headlands of the harbor on the east, the common clam, which has been of inesti- mable value alike to savage and civilized man, would have been comparatively unknown. This and other species of the lower forms of life will be more particularly referred to after mention- ing some of the higher that are or have been known in the harbor.
Animals living in the water will first be mentioned.
MAMMALS.
Perhaps it may surprise many who read these pages to learn that among the visitors to the harbor which have within quite recent periods entered it, may be included at least three species of the highly organized type of the mammalia, and particularly to be informed that one of these was of that family now so rarely seen west of Cape Cod, the Whale. Yet not many years since, within the memory of the living, one of these huge monsters of the deep, after amusing himself for a day or two just outside the boundary limits of the town, and around Bunkin Island, actually proceeded to enter and to pursue his way up the circuitous chan- nel. No sooner was this observed than a body of hardy citizens, duly prepared for encounter and inspired by a love of adventure, possibly by a desire for spoil, boldly but cautiously, as may well be surmised, ventured to go down the channel and approach him. Appreciating intuitively, no doubt, if he did not fully understand, the maxim of Shakspeare "that the better part of valor is dis- cretion," the whale quietly turned and went to sea.
Another species of the mammalia and one quite common in Massachusetts Bay, the Porpoise, used formerly to frequently enter the harbor and sport in its waters. The effect of steam navigation has led to such visitations becoming rare. The writer has seen from the Hingham steamboat, some fifty years since, on the passage to Boston, a great number of these animals crossing and recrossing before the bows of the vessel, apparently in sport, and this pastime was continued for a considerable time.
The third and last of the three marine mammals referred to as entering our harbor is the Seal, an animal of such highly sensitive organism and superior intelligence as to call for particular notice, especially as many reside with us during all but the severe winter months. They are observed with great interest by the thousands of passengers who pass in the steamers through the islands of the town, resting upon the rocky shores in full confidence that they will not be harmed. When unmolested they will repose them- selves not far distant from man, and will not move except upon his quite near approach.
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