Manchester, S^c, Essex County, Massachusetts. 203 



marked the beaches of Nahant and Chelsea. In the back 

 ground of this fine picture, stood a dark forest of the Red 

 Cedar and like hardy trees, whose stiff and straight forms rose 

 on the edges of rock and of confused strata of the ragged 

 hills of Saugus and Lynnfield. 



The natural features of this neighborhood are certainly 

 worthy of more attention than they seem to obtain. So di- 

 versified a range of strikingly beautiful objects seem scarcely 

 possible to be thus grouped. Considering the materiel which 

 the geological aspect of this section of our State furnishes 

 from the numerous high points on the steep hills in the vi- 

 cinity of Salem, it may be confidently asserted, that this 

 portion of Essex county can offer no mean field of interest 

 to the lover of Nature. A more faithful exploration, and a 

 wider range, with ample time for patient research, may bring 

 to light many more interesting forms of those lower plants, 

 of which the subalpine character of the region promises a 

 valuable harvest, and which are less dependent on the season or 

 on atmospherical conditions, in presenting themselves in some 

 pleasing relations to those, who study their habits or their 

 structure. To the like careful investigations of Oakes, the 

 lichenologist is already indebted for some of the rarer species, 

 which, though humble in their guise, yet may be considered 

 a fortunate acquisition by any botanist. On the broad and 

 flat platforms of the tops of many of these hills, where a 

 thin soil has been gained by the slow disintegration of the 

 looser fragments, lying wasted away to mere stones often- 

 times, may be found large flakes and dense masses, several 

 feet in circumference, and of proportionate altitude of stalks, 

 {jpodetia), the Stereocaulon paschale, a common, yet ever ad- 

 mired species, which, when growing in barren fields on the 

 plains, is merely a recumbent plant, struggling for existence 

 among the cladonias which overtop it. 



Returning from the several strolls which each party as- 

 sumed for itself, according to tastes or inclination, the com- 

 pany were invited by pressing calls of appetite, to partake of 

 such viands as prudent foresight had furnished, repairing to 

 one of the little groves of the yellow locusts, already alluded 



