USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 4
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7
OUTLINE OF THE GEOLOGY OF BOSTON.
water plants, coats the sandy bottoms or under-water terraces. In this mud, even at considerable depths, eel-grass and some sea-weeds take root, and their stems make a dense jungle. In this grass more mud is gath- ered, and kept from the scouring action of the tide by being bound together by the roots and cemented by the organic matter. This mass slowly rises until it is bare at low-tide. Then our marsh-grasses creep in, and in their interlaced foliage the waste brought in by the tide is retained, and helps to raise the level of the swamp higher. The streams from the land bring out a certain amount of mud, which at high-tide, is spread in a thin sheet over the surface of the low plain. Some devious channels are kept open by the strong scouring action of the tide, but the swamp rapidly gains a level but little lower than high-tide. Except when there is some chance deposit of mud or sand from the bluffs along its edges, these swamps are never lifted above high-tide mark, for the forces that build them work only below that level. Their effect upon the harbor of Boston has been disadvantageous. They have diminished the area of storage for the tide-water above the town, and thereby enfeebled the scouring power of the tidal currents. Except at the very highest tides, the Charles, Mystic, and Neponset rivers now pour their mud directly into the harbor, instead of unloading it upon the flats where these marshes have grown up. There are other forces at work to diminish the depth of water in the harbor. The score or more of islands that diversify its surface are all sources of waste, which the waves tend to scatter over the floor. For the first two hundred years after the settlement, the erosion of these islands was not prevented by sea-walls; and in this time the channels were doubtless much shoaled by river-waste. Just after the glacial period these channels were very deep. Borings made in the investigations for the new sewerage system showed that the channel at the mouth of the Neponset had been over one hundred feet deeper than at present, -the filling being the rearranged glacial drift brought there by just such processes as have recently shoaled the channels of the harbor.
The depth of this port has also been affected by the drifting in of sands along the shores contiguous to the northeast and southeast. When the sea surges along these shores, it drives a great deal of waste towards the har- bor. A fortunate combination of geographical accidents has served to keep the harbor from utter destruction from this action. On the north side, whence comes the greater part of this drifting material, several pocket-like beaches have been formed, which catch the moving sands and pebbles in their pouches, and stop their further movement. But for these protections - at Marblehead Neck, Lynn, and Chelsea on the north, and Nantasket on the south - the inner harbor would hardly exist, since these lodgements contain enough waste to close it entirely. At Nantasket the beach is now full and no longer detains the accumulating sands, which are overflowing into the outer harbor; yet, as the rate of flow is slow, its effect is not likely to be immediately hurtful.
S
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Of the ancient life of this district there is hardly a trace. The two great and conspicuous formations in the basin -the flags and conglomer- ates of the Roxbury series and the drift deposits of the last geological age - are both very barren in organic remains, for the reason that they are probably both the product of ice periods. The rocks older than the Roxbury series are too much changed to have preserved any trace of the organisms they may have once contained. In the rearranged drift there are some very interesting remains of buried forests that have not yet received from naturalists the attention they deserve. These buried trees lie at a con- siderable depth below low-tide mark, and are not exposed, except by the chance of the few excavations along the shore that penetrate to some depth below the water-line. When found, these trees seem all to be species of coniferous woods. The cone-bearing trees appear from this and other evidence to have been the first to remake the forests of this region, after the cessation of the last ice time. Even the larger animals that once in- habited this district- the moose, caribou, etc. - have left little trace of their occupation. It is rare, indeed, that a bone of their skeletons is found, except among the middens accumulated around the old camping-grounds of the aborigines.
On the extreme borders of the Boston basin there are extensive fossil- bearing strata. At Mansfield, on the south, which is just outside of this synclinal, and within the limits of the Rhode Island trough of the same nature, there is a broad section of the coal-measures exposed in some mines now unworked. These beds are extremely rich in fossil plants. At Gloucester there is a small deposit of beds, containing shells of mol- lusks that lived in the early part of the present period, that lie just above the high-tide mark. But neither of these interesting deposits extends into the limits of the Boston basin.
Although this basin has lost the greater part of its rocks by the wast- ing action of thé glacial periods, it owes more to these events than to all the other forces that have affected its physical condition. To their action we must attribute the formation of the trough in which the har- bor lies, the building of the peninsula occupied by the original town, and all the beautiful details of contour of the adjoining country. To them, also, it owes the peculiarly favorable conditions of drainage afforded by the deep sandy soils that underlie the terraces where the greater part of the urban population has found its dwelling-place.
Nathanil Southgate Shahr
CHAPTER II.
THE FAUNA OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS: FORMS BROUGHT IN AND EXPELLED BY CIVILIZATION.
BY JOEL A. ALLEN, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
T' HE changes in the fauna of the region immediately surrounding Boston, wrought by civilization, arc merely such as would be expected to occur in the transformation of a forest wilderness into a thickly populated district, namely, the extirpation of all the larger indigenous mammals and birds, the partial extinction of many others, and the great reduction in numbers of nearly all forms of animal life, both terrestrial and aquatic, as well as the introduction of various domesticated species and those universal pests of civilization the house rats and mice. The only other introduced species of importance are the European house-sparrow and a few species of noxious insects. As there is nothing peculiar in the changes in question, it seems best to devote the few pages allotted to this subject to a presentation of data bearing upon the character of the fauna as it was when the country was first settled by Europcans, these data being derived from the narratives of Wood, Morton, Higginson, Josselyn, and other early writers.
MAMMALS. - William Wood, in his New Englands Prospect, first pub- lished in 1634, thus begins his quaint enumeration of the animals occurring in the neighborhood of Boston : -
" The kingly Lyon, and the strong arm'd Beare, The large lim'd Mooses, with the tripping Deare, Quill darting Porcupines and Rackcoones be, Castell'd in the hollow of an aged tree. "
" Concerning Lyons," a point of some interest in the present connection, he adds, " I will not say that I ever saw any my selfe, but some affirme that they have scene a Lyon at Cape Anne, which is not above six leagus from Boston : some likewise being lost in woods, have heard such terrible roarings, as have made them much agast; which must either be Devills or Lyons ; there being no other creatures which use to roare saving Beares, which have not such a terrible kinde of roaring : besides, Plimouth men have traded for VOL. I .- 2.
IO
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Lyons skinnes in former times."1 To the above respecting " Lyons" may be added the following from an anonymous account of New Englands Plantation, published in 1630, and attributed to Francis Higginson: " For Beasts there are some Beares, and they say some Lyons also; for they have been seen at Cape Anne. . . . I have seen the Skins of all these Beasts since I came to this Plantation excepting Lyons." These and other early allusions to " Lyons" at Cape Ann, Plymouth, and elsewhere in southern New England, doubtless relate to the catamount or panther (the Felis con- color of naturalists), which formerly ranged from near the northern boun- dary of the United States throughout the continent, but which long since disappeared from nearly the whole Atlantic slope north of Virginia.
Lynxes were quite common, and bears rather numerous, the latter being hunted for their oil and flesh, which were esteemed " not bad commodities." Wolves roamed in large packs, and were very destructive to sheep, swine, and calves. As early as 1630 the Court of Massachusetts ordered rewards for their destruction. The wolves appear to have been unable or unwilling to leap fences in pursuit of cattle, a trait the settlers soon learned to profit by, as shown by the following from Wood, who, in describing the plantation of Saugus, refers to the " necke of land called Nahant," and adds: " In this necke is store of good ground, fit for the Plow; but for the present it is onely used for to put young cattle in, and weather-goates, and Swine, to secure them from the Woolves : a few posts and rayles from the lower water-markes to the shore, keepes out the Wolves, and keepes in the cattle."2 He alludes' to the same practice in his account of Boston, the situation of which, he says, "is very pleasant, being a Peninsula, hem'd in on the South-side with the Bay of Roxberry, on the North-side with Charles- river, the Marshes on the backe-side, being not halfe a quarter of a mile over; so that a little fencing will secure their Cattle from the Woolves." 3 Foxes were also so numerous as to be a great annoyance, bounties being early offered for their destruction. Lewis states that the authorities of Lynn paid, between the years 1698 and 1722, for the destruction of four hundred and twenty-eight foxes killed in " the Lynn woods and on Nahant," the reward being two shillings for cach fox.
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Among animals long since extirpated from Massachusetts is the " Jac- 'cal" mentioned by Josselyn,+ who describes it as "ordinarily less than Fores, of the colour of a gray Rabbet, and do not scent nothing near so strong as a For." This account points unquestionably to the Virginian or gray fox (Urocyon cinerco-argentatus), which during the last hundred years has receded southward and westward with great rapidity.
In respect to the larger game animals, there appears to be no evidence of the presence of the elk or wapiti deer ( Cervus canadensis ) in eastern Massa- chusetts within historic times, although it occupied the country not far to the westward. There are, however, distinct references to the occurrence of
Wood, ed. of 1636, pp. 16, 17. Ibid. P 32.
2 Ibid. p. 35-
A New Englands Rarities, p. 22.
II
THE FAUNA OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS.
the moose (Alces malchis) at Lynn and elsewhere northward and west- ward within forty miles of Boston. It was sometimes referred to under the name " elk," as in the following, from Morton's New English Canaan,1 pub- lished in 1637, but the accompanying descriptions render clear the identity of the species. "First, therefore," says Morton, "I will speake of the Elke, which the Salvages call a Mose: it is a very large Deare, with a very faire head, and a broade palme, like the palme of a fallow Deares horn, but much bigger, and is 6. foote wide betweene the tipps, which grow curbing downwards : Hec is of the biggnesse of a great horse. There have bin of them, seene that has bin 18. handfulls highe: hee hath a bunch of haire under his jawes ... . " Wood2 says: "There be not many of these in Massachusetts bay, but forty miles to the Northeast there be great store of them."
The common deer (Cariacus virginianus) was, from its abundance, by far the most important of the larger native animals, and for many years afforded a ready supply of animal food. Morton states that " an hundred have bin found at the spring of the yeare, within the compasse of a mile," 3 and other writers refer to their numbers in similar terms. With the excep- tion of a small remnant still existing in Plymouth and Barnstable Counties, thanks to stringent legislative protection, the species became long since extirpated throughout nearly the whole of southern New England.
Among other mammals that have entirely disappeared are the beaver, the marten, and the porcupine. The otter and the raccoon are nearly ex- tinct, and nearly all the smaller species occur in greatly reduced numbers, including the muskrat, mink, weasels, shrews, moles, squirrels, and the various species of field-mice. The marine mammals have declined equally with the land species. There are many allusions to the abundance, in early times, of seals, whales, and the smaller cetaceans. One writer, in speaking of Massachusetts Bay, says, " for it is well knowne that it cqualizeth Groin- land for Whales and Grampuses." It is a matter of history that a profita- ble whale-fishery was at one time carried on in the Bay itself, the whales being pursued at first in open boats from the shore.
BIRDS. - The great auk and the Labrador duck are believed to have become everywhere extinct, especially the former, and five or six other species long since disappeared from southern New England. All the larger species, and many of the shore-birds, have greatly decreased, as have likewise most of the smaller forest-birds. The few that haunt culti- vated grounds have doubtless nearly maintained their former abundance, and in some instances have possibly increased in numbers. Prominent among those formerly abundant, but which now occur only at long inter- vals as stragglers from the remote interior, are swans and cranes. Respect- ing the former, Morton has left us the following : "And first of the Swanne, because shee is the biggest of all the fowles of that Country. There are of
1 Page 74. 2 Page 18. 3 New English Canaan, P. 75.
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12
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
them in Merrimack River, and in other parts of the country, greate store at the seasons of the yearc. The flesh is not much desired of the inhab- itants, but the skinnes may be accompted a commodity, fitt for divers uses, both for fethers and quiles." Of " Cranes," he says, " there are greate store. . These sometimes cate our corne, and doe pay for their presumption well enough ; and serveth there in powther, with turnips to supply the place of pow- thered beefe, and is a goodly bird in a dishc, and no discommodity." 1 The crane was probably the brown crane (Grus can- adensis), while the swans embraced both of the American species.
The wild Turkey is well known to have been for- merly abundant. Wood speaks of there sometimes being "forty, three-score, and an hundred of a flocke," while Morton alludes to a "thousand" seen in one day. According to Josse- lyn, they began early to decline. After alluding to their former abundance, he THE GREAT AUK. says, writing in 1672, " but this was thirty years since, the English and the Indian having now so destroyed the breed, so that 't is very rare to meet with a Turkie in the Woods; but some of the English bring up great store of the wild kind, which remain about their Houses as tame as ours in England."2 The complete extirpation of the wild stock appears to have occurred at an early datc.
The pinnated grouse (Cupidonia cupido) likewise soon disappeared. The few which still remain on Martha's Vineyard are believed to be a rem- nant of the original stock, but this is rendered doubtful by the fact that birds introduced from the West have been at different times turned out on this or neighboring islands.
The former presence of the great auk (Alca impennis) along the coast of Massachusetts is not only attested by history but by the occurrence of its bones in the Indian shell-heaps at Ipswich and neighboring points. It seems to have existed in the vicinity of Boston till near the close of the
1 New English Canaan, p. 67. 2 New Englands Rarities, p. 9.
13
THE FAUNA OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS.
seventeenth century, but probably did not survive to a much later date. The earliest reference to it as a bird of our coast is contained in Archer's Relation of Captainc Gosnols Voyage to the North part of Virginia, made in 1602, in which "Pengwins" are mentioned as found on the New Eng- land coast in latitude 43°. The account further states that " near Gilbert's Point," in latitude 41º 40', " by the ships side we there killed Pengwins." In Rosier's account of a Virginian Voyage made An. 1605 by Captainc George Waymouth, in the Arch-angell, " Penguins " are enumerated among the birds met with, in all probability near Nantucket Shoals. As the bird here called "Penguins " is not described in the accounts above cited, the following, from Captain Richard Whitbourne's Relation of Newfoundland, may be of interest: "These Penguins are as bigge as Geese, and flie not, for they have but a little short wing, and they multiply so infinitely vpon a certaine flat Iland, that men drive them from thence vpon a boord into their Boates by hundreds at a time; as if God had made the innocencie of so poore a creature to become such an admirable instrument for the sus- tentation of man."1 From Josselyn's account of the " Wobble," which is evidently the same bird, it may be inferred that it was not uncommon on the coast of Massachusetts Bay as late as 1672. He says: " The Wobble, an ill shaped Fowl, having no long Feathers in their Pinions, which is the reason they cannot fly, not much unlike a Penguin; they are in the Spring very fat, or rather oyly, but pull'd and garbidg'd, and laid to the Fire to roast, they yield not one drop." 2
The abundance of water-fowl and shore-birds seems worthy of brief notice. Morton describes three kinds of geese, and says: "There is of them great abundance. I have had often 1000. before the mouth of my gunne .. . the fethers of the Geese that I have killed in a short time, have paid for all the powther and shott, I have spent in a yeare, and I have fed my doggs with as fatt Geese there as I have ever fed upon my selfe in England." Of ducks he mentions three kinds, besides "Widggens," and two sorts of teal, and refers to its being a " noted Custome " at his house "to have every mans Duck upon a trencher." He speaks of the smaller shore-birds under the general term "Sanderling," and says they were "easie to come by, because I went but a stepp or to for them: I have killed betweene foure and five dozen at a shoot which would loade me home." 3
Wood observes, "Such is the simplicity of the smaller sorts of these birds [which he calls 'Humilities or Simplicities,'] that one may drive them on a heape like so many sheepe, and seeing a fit time shoot them ; the living. sceing the dead, settle themselves on the same place againe, amongst which the Fowler discharges againe. I my selfe have killed twelve score at two shootes." +
No bird appears to have been more numerous in carly times throughout
1 Purchas his Pilgrims, iv. pp. ISS5, 1SS6.
3 New English Canaan, pp. 67-69.
2 New Englands Rarities, p. II.
A New Englands Prospect, pp. 26, 27.
14
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the whole Atlantic slope than was the wild pigeon. The carly historians of the region here in question speak of flocks containing " millions of mil- lions," having seemingly, as Josselyn expresses it, " neither beginning nor ending." and "so thick" as to obscure the sun. Other writers speak of their passing in such immense clouds as to hide the sun for hours together.
REPTILES. - The antipathy to snakes, which so generally impels their destruction at every opportunity, has left few of these in comparison with their former numbers. The rattlesnake, the only dangerous species, found now only at few localities, was formerly much more generally dispersed. The draining of ponds and marshy lands has greatly circumscribed the haunts of frogs, salamanders, and tortoises, which at many localities have become nearly extirpated.
FISHIES. - A few quotations respecting some of the more important kinds of edible fish will show to how great a degree our streams and coast waters have been depopulated. Respecting the codfish, the bass, and the mackerel, Morton speaks as follows: "The Coast aboundeth with such multitudes of Codd, that the inhabitants of New England doc dunge their grounds with Codd; and it is a commodity better than the golden mincs of the Spanish Indies. . . . The Basse is an excellent Fish. . . . There are such multitudes, that I have seene stopped into the river [Merrimack] close adjoyning to my howse with a sand at one tide, so many as will loade a ship of a 100. Tonnes. Other places have greater quantities in so much, as wagers have bin layed, that one should not throw a stone in the water, but that hee should hit a fish. I my selfe, at a turning of the tyde, have seene such multitudes passe out of a pound, that it seemed to mee, that one might goe over their backs drishod. ... The Mackarels arc the baite for the Basse, and these have bin chased into the shallow waters, where so many thousands have shott themselves ashore with the surfc of the Sca, that whole hogges-heads have bin taken up on the Sands; and for length they excell any of other parts: they have bin measured 18. and 19. inches in length, and seaven in breadth : and are taken . . . in very greate quantities all alonge the Coaste." 1
Wood says, " ... shoales of Basse have driven up shoales of Macrill from one end of the sandie Beach to another [referring to Lynn Beach]; which the inhabitants have gathered up in wheele-barrowes." Higginson, in speaking of " a Fish called a Basse," states that the fishermen used to take more of them in their nets than they could " hale to land, and for want of Boats and Men they are constrained to let a many goe after they have taken them, and yet sometimes they fill two Boats at a time with them."
Other kinds of fish appear to have been correspondingly abundant. " There is a Fish, (by some called shadds, by some allizes)," says Morton, " that at the spring of the yearc, passe up the rivers to spaune in the ponds ;
1 New English Canaan, pp. 86-SS.
15
THE FAUNA OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS.
and are taken in such multitudes in every river, that hath a pond at the end, that the Inhabitants doung their ground with them. You may see in one towneship a hundred acres together, set with these Fish, every acre taking 1000. of them." Wood records that " In two Tydes they have gotten one hundred thousand of those Fishes" (referring to shad and alewives) " in a Wayre to catch Fish," built just below the falls of Charles River. Among other abundant species are mentioned halibut and floun- ders. Respecting the latter, Morton says "They (at flowing water) do almost come ashore, so that one may stepp but halfe a foote deepe and prick them up on the sands."
I find no distinct allusion to the bluefish, but it is well known to have been for a long time of periodical occurrence in Massachusetts Bay. A century ago it was abundant about Nantucket and to some distance north- ward; later, it disappeared for about fifty years, and then again became more or less abundant, even in Massachusetts Bay. Their reappearance, says Mr. N. E. Atwood, has caused " the rapid diminution of the mackerel during the spawning-season, and the tenfold increase of the lobster, the young of which were devoured by the mackerel." }
INVERTEBRATES. - There are, as would naturally be expected, few available data for a comparison of the present invertebrate fauna with that of two hundred and fifty years ago, and these relate mainly to a few of the edible " shell-fish." From the accounts left us by the authors already so frequently quoted, it appears that the lobster has declined greatly in num- bers and in size. In the quaint language of the times, they are said to have been "infinite in store in all parts of the land, and very excellent," and to have sometimes attained a weight of sixteen to twenty-five pounds. They appear to have been an important source of food to the Indians, as Morton2 says, " ... the Salvages will meete 500, or 1000. at a place where Lobsters come in with the tyde, to eate, and save dried for store, abiding in that place, feasting and sporting a moneth or 6. weekes together."
Oysters were found in "greate store" "in the entrance of all Rivers," and of large size. Wood says the oyster-banks in Charles River " doe barre out the bigger ships." He thus describes the oysters: "The Oisters be great ones in forme of a shoo horne, some be a foote long, these breede on certaine bankes that are bare every Spring tide. This fish without the shell is so big that it must admit of a division before you can well get it into your mouth." From some not well-known cause the oysters dicd out so long ago along most parts of the Massachusetts coast that some recent authorities have doubted whether they were ever indigenous here, those now cultivated having been introduced from other points.
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