8 BEACH GRASS 



over from England willow wands which they 

 stuck in the ground to grow, and I like to think 

 that Winthrop the younger, who owned all this 

 region, may have planted this tree. There are 

 three other willows of the same great age and de- 

 crepitude but with the same vigor of renewed 

 youth, two side by side higher up on Castle Hill, 

 the other on the side of Sagamore Hill. The 

 pair on Castle Hill are much broken with age. 

 The trunk of one is fourteen feet, seven inches in 

 circumference, the other seventeen feet nine 

 inches in circumference — almost six feet in diam- 

 eter. 



A mirage of the distant coast and of vessels on 

 the sea is a common phenomenon at Ipswich 

 beach as in all seashore regions. Cape Ann is 

 often distorted by mirage and the low shores and 

 houses of the New Hampshire coast are elevated 

 so that they appear like lofty cliffs, interrupted 

 with numerous water-falls. The distant Isles of 

 Shoals, visible only on clear days, are raised up 

 so as to look like a city, dominated by the lofty 

 lighthouse column. Mt. Agamentacus in Maine 

 resembles a huge and flattened inverted bowl. 



