•21-1 

 NoTiCEAULK Traits of the Flora of Xahant. 



BY C, M. TRACY. 



In all its climatic and physical relations, Nahant is essen- 

 tially an island. The slender lieach joining- it with the main- 

 land seems to be an element altogether unimportant in this 

 view, having probably, but a nominal influence in the history 

 of the natural vegetation of the peninsula. This supposition 

 gains force from the further circumstance, that while Mar- 

 blehead Neck, the only other body of land along our shore, 

 which is similarly placed, lietrays in its productions, con- 

 siderable affinity with the mainland, Nahant, attached by 

 a beach many times longer, and therefore farther out at sea, 

 exhibits much stronger peculiarities in its flora than the 

 other. And this is true, notwithstanding that this beach 

 has been a thoroughfare from the earliest times, and the 

 operation of human agencies to assimilate its productions to 

 those of the opposite shore has been, probably, quite as active 

 as at Marblehead Neck. Thus we are led to conclude, that 

 the beach and its uses have effected the result but little, as 

 to the spontaneous growth, and in this respect, Nahant, as 

 at first stated, is essentially an island. 



As all residents in the vicinity are aware, no remnant of 

 any natural forest now exists on Nahant. I doubt if a sin- 

 gle tree can be found, there which has not been planted by 

 man, and that too, within a comparatively recent period. 

 But it is a curious fact that this was far from the case in the 

 " olden times" as history is not wanting in proofs that the 

 peninsula was once thicldy covered with woods, such as af- 

 forded an ample covert for rapacious and troublesome wild 

 animals. Lewis has distinctly asserted this, and has not, I 

 think, been contradicted.* Citations from the early voya- 

 gers, as Gosnold, John Smith and others, certainly go far to 

 establish this point, and the testimony of old "William Wood 

 to the same effect may be held, perhaps, as conclusive. This 

 writer declares, in 1633, that Nahant was " well wooded 

 with Oakes, Pines and Cedars"f Whatever the density of the 

 Nahant forest may have been, it was enough to answer the 

 purposes of the bear, which was there in 1630, and of the 



*Hist. Lynn. p. 20,— lb. p. 41, 42, 43. t lb. p. 82. 



