CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETT S 
912 
l£20 
(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 7 Hill and the creek near it, as well 
as beyond this creek, has been filled with ea.rth from the 
subway left in hea]bs as it was dumped from the carts. 
Elsewhere the surface of the marsh has hot 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, sedge 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 or dying and there is 
comparatively little golden-rod (Solidago ?) 
left. Hosts of plants and v/eeds of various kinds have 
evidently established themselves there since the dam was 
built and salt water shut out. Among these I noticed 
purple fire weed in bloom, cat-tail flags, saggitaria 
(arrowhead), and young birches, the last named numerous 
in places and five or six feet in height. The numerous, 
straight, narrow artificial ditches still persist and 
certain shallow waters swarming with mosquito larvae, al¬ 
though schools of small fish hovered about their mouths. 
Oh 
Visited the Charles River marshes this forenoon 
u 
