CLOTHED W'fTir VEGETATION. 63 



as Indian corn, or maize, was an extremely valuable prod- 

 uct. The marsh grasses did some building of land much 

 after the pattern of the bog mosses. At the mouth of 

 Bound Brook as before noticed (page 13), all the salt 

 meadows, including the Conohasset meadows of Scituate, 

 have been built up in some places as much as three feet 

 by the growth of grasses. Underneath this marsh, three 

 feet or more below the present surface, is the original sur- 

 face of clay as the glacier left it, with the roots of swamp 

 alder still lying in it : the eelers find the roots sometimes 

 to their grief in spearing under the edge of the channel; 

 and before the tide gates were last put in at the Gulf 

 bridge, the low tide left many of the roots exposed along 

 the muddy banks. 



A shovelful of the marsh muck that lies on top of the 

 original clay surface will show any one who examines it 

 spears of grass, besides the roots of grass. The first 

 spears of grass lie flat upon the clay just where they fell- 

 hundreds of years ago. Their roots are still to be seen 

 in the clay. As each successive crop of grass grew and 

 fell over, uncut by any man, a slight coating of decayed 

 grass lifted the next year's growth a little higher, so that 

 at the end of many years the marsh has been brought to 

 its present height above the original clay surface.* The 

 slow subsidence of the land, spoken of in the first chapter, 

 has facilitated the accumulations ; but the work has 

 been done by the grasses. 



Another marsh, that of Little Harbor, has been built 

 up in a similar way. Three or four feet below the muck 

 at the foot of the Ridges, pieces of old logs and roots are 

 to be found buried under the accumulations of decayed 

 grass and other stuff. 



These logs are probably the remains of a growth of 



* William Veale, of South Main Street, who has dug through the marsh back 

 of his house, has called my attention to these facts about the formation of the 

 marsh. 



