NANTUCKET TREES 7 



evidently skirted was too inhospitable. Rosier' s record 

 reads: "Munday, the 12 th of May, about eleven a clocke 

 afore noon, our Captalne, judging we were not farre from 

 land, sounded. . .and by eight a clock (of the next day), 

 having not made above five or six leagues, our Captain 

 upon a sudden change of water (supposing verely he saw 

 the sand) presently sounded, and had but five fathoms. 

 Much marvelling because we saw no land, he sent one to 

 the top, who thence described a whitish sandy cliffe, 

 which bore west-north-west about six leagues off from 

 us; (they approached the land in a small boat, but the 



rocks and currents made this too dangerous) ... .Thus we 

 parted from the land...." Henry S. Burrage, the editor 

 of the record has identified the "whitish sandy cliffe" 

 as Sankety Head and the shoal as Rose and Crown Shoal 

 of Great Rip. c Waymouth then turned north and his 

 descriptions of Indians are of those along the Maine 

 coast. We may gather from them, however, Indian habits 

 of the time in the use of wood. "Their canoes are made 

 without any iron, of the bark of a birch tree, strength- 

 ened within with ribs and hoops of wood." "Their bow is 

 made of witch-hazle, and some of beach..." "One special 

 thing is their manner of killing the whale...." (They) 

 "strike hime with a bone made in fashion of a harping 

 iron fastened to a rope, which they make great and strong 

 of the bark of trees.".... 40 



The white man has been even more destructive than 

 the Indian. The record of the first settlement by white 

 men on the New England coast begins the story of tree 

 denudation. In 1602, five years before the founding of 

 Jamestown, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold from England 

 landed upon Cuttyhunk, the smallest of the Elizabeth 

 Islands. His party built a rude fort and lived there 

 for three weeks while they gathered wood. The wood of 

 their special Interest was sassafras which was then much 

 in demand because of its supposed medicinal value. It 

 is mentioned several times in The Relation of Captain 

 Gosnold'8 Voyage to the North Dart of Virginia: "de- 

 livered by Gabriel Archer, a gentleman in the said voyage." 

 "The nlne-and-twentieth we labored in getting of sassafras 

 . . . .The first of June, we employed ourselves in getting 

 sassafras and the building of our fort." . . .The -Indians 

 "went into the wood to help us dig sassafras." John 



