Cambridge, Mass.
1912
July 20
[July 20, 1912]

  Clear & cool with light S.W. [southwest] wind.
  Visited the Charles River marshes this forenoon (9.30 - 11.30)
in company with Walter Deane. We entered them behind the
Stillman Infirmary and left them at the south east corner
of Cambridge Cemetery. They are in an interesting state of
transition from salt (or brackish) marshes to fresh water
meadows and park lands. A large area between [?] Hill
and the creek near it, as well as beyond this creek, has been 
filled with earth from the subway left in heaps as it
was dumped from the carts. Elsewhere the surface of the
marsh has not as yet been modified in any way by man.
Its vegetation has changed a good deal, although less than
might have been expected. Practically all the salt marsh
grasses, sedges and other plants still persist but many
of them are less numerous than formerly and languishing
more or less perceptibly. Much of the "black grass" is dead