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lighter Imc than is the rcs^t of the mai-s, andt^ccms hke the 

 white sail of a ship. On the other sides, innumerable crns- 

 taceous lichens have deadened the natural fracture and given 

 to the surfaces a gray tint. Alcove these several kinds of 

 tripe de roclics (Umbilicarias) cover with dark and sonil^re 

 shagginess the gigantic houlder, relieved only by greener 

 tints of mosses where interstices occur. The late Dr. Andrew 

 Nichols regarded this mass as belonging to a scries of frag- 

 ments evidently of a cotemporaneous period, and identical 

 with each other, forming a bed or stratum of only a few 

 miles extent ; but broken asunder by some convulsion, which 

 has tossed the pieces in every direction and forced them 

 across the intervening lands, Avliich are bounded in a south- 

 erly direction by the greenstone hills of the range over which 

 the Salem Turnpike traverses. It were worth while with 

 this idea in view to examine the immediate vicinity of Ship 

 Rock, and trace in the confused pile of smaller boulders and 

 in the debris^ the same and identical minerological character 

 of the fragments, which of all shapes and outlines lie around 

 the brow of the rising ground on which Ship Rock rests. 

 Amid the crevices and miniature caverns formed by the 

 rude piling together of the several pieces, nothing but the 

 hardiest shrubs and plants can grow ; and the explorer pen- 

 etrating the wilder parts, finds the black birch, the yellow 

 l)irch, and similar growths struggling for scanty subsistence, 

 out of crevices clothed with rich green and golden tinted 

 mosses, rock ferns, liverworts or perchance the glaucous fu- 

 mitory, which delight in shady and cool retreats. If diligent 

 and patient and with a good eye on the look-out, he may 

 find in some sterile and scantily clothed patch of vegetable 

 soil among the hair-mosses, the rare and exceedingly curious 

 Buxbaumia apliylla^ a tiny thing of scarcely an inch in total 

 size, looking like a little brown fungus, but a veritable moss 

 notwithstanding, having for roots a sort of hairy bulb, for 

 stem a short granulated purple stock, with five or six scale- 

 like leaves ; surmounted by the oddest capsule so much in 



