PROVINCETOWN. 
207 
therefore their crews used to land at night and steal 
them. I did not hear of a rod of regular stone wall 
below Orleans. Yet I saw one man underpinning a 
new house in Eastham with some “ rocks,” as he called 
them, which he said a neighbor had collected with great 
pains in the course of years, and finally made over to 
him. This I thought was a gift worthy of being re¬ 
corded, — equal to a transfer of California “ rocks,” 
almost. Another man who was assisting him, and who 
seemed to be a close observer of nature, hinted to me 
the locality of a rock in that neighborhood which was 
“ forty-two paces in circumference and fifteen feet high,” 
for he saw that I was a stranger, and, probably, would 
not carry it off. Yet I suspect that the locality of the 
few large rocks on the forearm of the Cape is well 
known to the inhabitants generally. I even met with 
one man who had got a smattering of mineralogy, but 
where he picked it up I could not guess. I thought 
that ' he would meet with some interesting geological 
nuts for him to crack, if he should ever visit the main¬ 
land, Cohasset or Marblehead, for instance. 
The well stones at the Highland Light were brought 
from Hingham, but the wells and cellars of the Cape 
are generally built of brick, which also are imported. 
The cellars, as well as the wells, are made in a circular 
form, to prevent the sand from pressing in the wall. 
The former are only from nine to twelve feet in diam¬ 
eter, and are said to be very cheap, since a single tier 
of brick will sufiice for a cellar of even larger dimen¬ 
sions. Of course, if you live in the sand, you will not 
require a large cellar to hold your roots. In Province- 
town, when formerly they suffered the sand to drive 
under their houses, obliterating all rudiment of a cellar, 
