66 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IO7 



entered by strangers. The entrance is obstructed by a shifting bar with about 

 6 feet (1.8 m.) over it at low water. The Harbor is nearly filled by flats and 

 shoals, which also extend 2 miles off the entrance from the shore eastward of 

 the lighthouse. . . Few vessels enter the harbor, the greatest draft being 12 

 feet (3.7 m.). . . After crossing the bar the channel has a depth of about 8 

 feet (2.4 m.) for 3 miles to within | mile of the wharf at Barnstable. [P. 293.] 



Nauset Harbor. . . . The entrance is practically bare at low water and is used 

 only by small local craft at high water. Strangers should never attempt to enter. 

 [Atlantic Coast, Section B, Cape Cod to Sandy Hook, p. 35.] 



Chatham Bar, the northern entrance to Chatham. . . The channel over the 

 bar to the town of Chatham had a depth of about 32 feet (i.i m.) at low water 

 in 1925, but is subject to frequent changes, and the buoys at the entrance can 

 not be depended on to lead in the best water. The channel is used only by small 

 local craft with a smooth sea and is not safe for strangers. The large shoal 

 bay northward of the entrance is seldom entered. [Ibid.] 



Mashpee River is not mentioned in the Coast Pilot Guide, but 

 Poponesset Bay into which it flows is said to be "used only by local 

 oyster boats." The entrance is narrow and unmarked, dredged to 

 60 feet wide and 6 feet (1.8 m.) deep. The entrance channel is 

 subject to shoaling, and in 1925 was good for a draft of only 3 feet 

 (0.9 m). [Ibid.] 



Slocums River is evidently of slight importance because the name 

 does not appear either in the Coast Pilot Guide or on the Rand and 

 McNally Map of Massachusetts. 



Although each of these has what might be called a lakelike ex- 

 pansion just back from the sea, some of them, as for instance, 

 Barnstable, Nauset, and Chatham Harbors, can hardly be said to have 

 rivers flowing into or through them. Hampton, Parker, Essex, 

 Mashpee, and Slocums Rivers are in tidal marshes and the expansions 

 in them are due mainly to coastal bars or islands. The last two are in 

 low, sandy country. The first 5 might perhaps be in sight of moun- 

 tains, but of the 10 only the Merrimack seems to have the high land 

 nearby called for in the relations. Newburyport, which is on the south 

 bank, is on fairly high ground. Farther up, on the same side of the 

 river, is a hill more than 40 feet high, and still farther up, opposite 

 Carr Island, is one 120 feet high. This lies in a bend of the river. 

 The channel into the Merrimack is given a maximum depth over the 

 bar of 162 feet, as noted above, but this is modified by the statement 

 of the Coast Pilot Guide and it is not indicated what it might have 

 been before the jetties were constructed. The river enters the sea 

 between two offshore beach islands, back of which and between them 

 and the present Newburyport is a shallow expansion known as 

 Joppa Flats. The mean high tide at the mouth of the river is 8 feet 



