UP TO DATE. 523 



that the great glacier left a coating of clay and gravel 

 upon our granite just sufficient to hold the rains that 

 soak in, and not deep enough to drop the water below the 

 reach of a pump. The glacial deposits in some places of 

 North America were so deep that the water may seep 

 through for several hundred feet before reaching bed rock. 

 The writer has seen a well in the city of Seattle, on Puget 

 Sound, dug for more than two hundred feet through sand 

 and clay deposited by the glacier, and even at that depth 

 the bottom would not hold water. 



The old-fashioned well sweep has always been able to 

 reach the water in Cohasset wells, and pumps have never 

 found a case where the water has been beyond their 

 reach of thirty feet. 



The old pump, which stands at the junction of Elm 

 and Main Streets in the center of the town, is one of many 

 that have kept man and beast supplied. Generations of 

 neighbors have used it, fishing schooners of bygone days 

 had their casks of fresh water filled from its depths, and 

 school children have squeaked more than one pump handle 

 to death above it. Speaking of school children reminds 

 us that the schoolhouses of old were usually placed upon 

 some rocky ledge which could be used for nothing else, 

 and consequently no wells could be furnished the thirsty 

 children except some kindly neighbor's or some street 

 pump like the one mentioned. 



But the time of modern convenience in water works 

 came to us after nearly two centuries of primitive wells. 

 It was brought about chiefly by Charles S. Bates, whose 

 greatgrandfather, Samuel Bates, in the same spirit of solid 

 enterprise, established the first wharf at our harbor. The 

 enterprise of a public water system in Cohasset could not 

 promise any financial gain to the projectors, and Mr. 

 Bates, in his appeal to private citizens to undertake it, 

 placed the whole matter upon the high plane of public 

 benefaction and town improvement. 



