266 On Salt Marsh 



Many of the foregoing remarks apply, with most effect, 

 to large tracts of salt marsh ; and, in this view of the 

 subject, it appears proper to advert to the difficulty of 

 procuring fresh water for cattle, when the meadow shall 

 be prepared for grazing : the subject is mentioned now, 

 because we are considering the propriety of banking, 

 with an eye to the expense as well as the profit. It is 

 common for the marshes to extend two, or even three 

 miles' from the fast land to the river or bay ; and, where 

 no fresh streams pass through, there are but two expe- 

 dients ; one is, to build a platform or slip, for cattle to 

 descend upon to the river, at low tide ; but this can be 

 useful only where the water is merely brackish — brackish 

 rivers being potable at that period : the other is, to have 

 a well so constructed as to obtain fresh and exclude 

 brackish water ; the best mode of accomplishing this has 

 been practised within the fortifications of the Pea Patch, 

 a low marsh island, near the head of Delaware bay. An 

 iron cylinder, about four feet in length, whose rim is an 

 inch and a half thick, and the diameter three feet in the 

 clear, is put into a well in the salt marsh, when dug to 

 the depth of half a dozen feet ; the cylinder sinks into 

 the mud, and another one is placed upon it ; a man de- 

 scends to dig the mud from around the rim and from the 

 middle, by which means, and the weight of iron, the cy- 

 linder settles ; and thus joint after joint is put on, till 

 the spring below the surface of sand or gravel is found as 

 fresh as those in upland. The joints of the cylinder are 

 not made with grooves, but they effectually exclude any 

 water that would otherwise ooze through the mud into 

 the well. Few wells in salt marsh need be dug deeper 

 than ten feet below the sand or gravel on which the marsh 



