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of Medford in parting with her rights in the old Turkey Swamp, 

 with its splendid possibilities. 



So complete has been this conversion of a great swamp into a 

 great lake, that a stranger viewing it for the first time, would 

 find it hard to realize that it was not Nature's own production, 

 but the handiwork of man; that wonderful versatile creature 

 whose plastic hands mould the elements at will, and shape the 

 resources of Nature to suit all the various purposes of his exist- 

 ence. 



In the old days Turkey Swamp was a favorite nesting place 

 for some of the rarest of our native birds, its deep recesses and 

 almost impenetrable thickets affording them ample protection, 

 and so, when 1 was making my way homeward along the bor- 

 ders of the new lake late one afternoon last spring and heard the 

 plaintive notes of a lone warbler from the spray of an over-hang- 

 ing bush near the water's edge, uttering its low evening song, 

 it seemed to me to be the inexpressibly sad requim of a bereft 

 spirit bewailing the loss of its old haunts, and 1 could not help 

 wishing for the old swamp once more with all its old time attrac- 

 tions, when the songs of the birds were blithe and cheery. 



During the summer of 1884, the bed of the old swamp con- 

 tained an immense number of typhas, (cat-o-nine-tails), stand- 

 ing so close together, that as the wind stirred their ripened plumes 

 in the noonday sun, the swamp looked like a vast sea of surging 

 billows reflecting rays of burnished silver. Merely as a matter 

 of speculation, 1 made an effort to approximate the probable num- 

 ber of seeds there, and estimated 528,000,000,000; but the pho- 

 tograph which 1 made of the swamp at that time will, in com- 

 parison with those of the reservoirs shown, give a very good idea 

 of the character of the great change which the place has under- 

 gone. 



Below the great dam with its magnificent green slope, Meeting 

 House Brook, or as the boys at one time called it, on account of 

 the great number of smelts that used to ascend from the river to 

 spawn, Smelt Brook, runs through the valley clear to the Mystic 

 river. When the springs are over-flowing, and the streams are 

 running full and free, this is the most beautiful of all our brooks. 



It flows through a delightfully diversified region, and, from 

 early spring, when the golden cowslips are gleaming in the 

 swamps, to late autumn, when a few belated goldenrods and 



