118 



Field Meeting at Annisquam, Thursday, 

 August 8, 1872. 



A PLEASANT, warm summer's" day, so congenial and 

 appropriate for a visit to the seashore, where can be 

 enjoyed the cool and refreshing breezes of the ocean, 

 induced man}' to accompany the Institute on this excur- 

 sion to the rock-bound coast of Cape Ann. After a pleas- 

 ant ride in the cars to the Gloucester station, and thence 

 by carriage some four or live miles, the party arrived at 

 the place of meeting in Aimisquam, a parish of Gh^ucester 

 on the north side of the Cape. 



The latter portion of the trip was exceedingly interest- 

 ing and attractive, passing over a road abounding in rich 

 and varied scenery and in many places highly picturesque ; 

 huge masses of rock, with small patches of green verdure 

 interspersed, were conspicuous ; the little brown, weather- 

 stained, moss-covered cottages, that thirty years ago were 

 marked features in the landscape, are giving place to a 

 more substantial and connnodious class of structures with 

 all the appendages of the new and im[)rovcd residences ; 

 thus indicating that the inhabitants are prosperous and 

 turning their attention to a less precarious employment. 

 From an early period the fisheries have been carried on 

 with varied success at several points on the Cape, around 

 which have clustered villages of considerable extent ; al- 

 though in this section the business has declined, yet the 

 increased attention in others, esi)ecially at the "Harbor," 

 has made Ghnicester the most important fishing place on 

 the continent. 



The introduction of the stone business, which com 

 meuced at Pigeon Cove in 1824, and has, in a great de- 

 gree, supeVseded the fisheries, effected this change and has 



