MASSACHUSETTS— BEEHIVE OF BUSINESS 



243 



Photograph by Herbert B. Turner 



DRYING SAILS AFTER THE STORM : GLOUCESTER, MASS. 



One gets a vivid idea of the wealth of the sea at Gloucester. Cod and mackerel, haddock, 

 herring, and halibut; tautog and quahog; scup and sculpin ; swordfish and spikefish ; tinkers, 

 cusk, and eels ; blue fish and butterfish ; flounder, perch, and sea trout ; oysters, lobsters, and 

 clams — one must tax his fishing lore to enumerate the species that are brought into port daily. 



and garters ; and in all these lines sur- 

 passes every other State. 



With such a vast concentration of light 

 manufactures, it is only natural that Mas- 

 sachusetts should have many cities and 

 towns ; but one is hardly prepared to be- 

 lieve that this small Commonwealth has 

 32 cities of 20,000 population and up- 

 ward, more than any other State of the 

 Union. More than 100 of its smaller 

 municipalities have populations above the 

 5,000 mark. 



"the heart of the commonwealth" 



About each of the principal cities a 

 word must suffice. As Boston will later 

 be described in the "Big City" series of 

 articles appearing from time to time in 

 The Geographic, no mention of it need 

 be made here. 



The second citv of the State is Worces- 



ter, which calls itself the "Heart of the 

 Commonwealth." A busy metropolis, it 

 has been a cradle of invention and is a 

 center of industry. Within a radius of 

 fifteen miles of its central square were 

 born Eli Whitney, whose gin made cotton 

 the fabric of civilization ; Ichabod Wash- 

 burn, who drew the first piano wire in 

 America ; Erastus Bigelow, the inventor 

 of the carpet machine ; Thomas Blanch- 

 ard, who designed a machine for making 

 tacks and a lathe for turning irregu- 

 lar shapes; George Crompton. the in- 

 ventor of the power loom for weaving 

 fancy cottons ; and Asa Hapgood, in- 

 ventor of the upper berth in sleeping cars. 

 Worcester has drawn enough wire to 

 girdle the globe a thousand times. It has 

 made enough corsets to fit out every fem- 

 inine form on the earth. It has facilities 

 for producing enough envelopes to carry 



