VIII. 
THE HIGHLAND LIGHT. 
This light-house, known to mariners as the Cape Cod 
or Highland Light, is one of our ‘^primary sea-coast 
lights,” and is usually the first seen by those approach¬ 
ing the entrance of Massachusetts Bay^from Europe. 
It is forty-three miles from Cape Ann Light, and forty- 
one from Boston Light. It stands about twenty rods 
from the edge of the bank, which is here formed of clay. 
I borrowed the plane and square, level and dividers, 
of a carpenter who was shingling a barn near by, and 
using one of those shingles made of a mast, contrived a 
rude sort of quadrant, with pins for sights and pivots, 
and got the angle of elevation of the Bank opposite the 
light-house, and with a couple of cod-lines the length of 
its slope, and so measured its height on the shingle. It 
rises one hundred and ten feet above its immediate base, 
or about one hundred and twenty-three feet above mean 
low water. Graham, who has carefully surveyed the ex¬ 
tremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirty 
feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty 
degrees vdth the horizon, where I measured it, but the 
clay is generally much steeper. No cow nor hen ever 
gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is 
fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to 
