8 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
querying me as to “where I’ve been,” if I ever AM away 
from her an evening after we get settled down! I am 
a fairly good single-handed liar, but I really should not 
prefer Valma to do the cross-examining. 
“Twas chilly in the evening and we did enjoy the 
crackling oak logs at the Inn. 
“T can see, Jack,” began Valma, “that some changes 
and very important ones are gradually taking place. 
There is a growing tendency to build after the literal 
style of the Old Farmhouse, those with the long roofs, 
the low eaves and all that.” (She does have a head for 
those architectural things. ) It is a pleasing innovation. 
“Then, too, the roads are so much better. I notice 
also many more garages. Best of all, there is indication 
that the North Shore ‘season,’ this year is to be unusually 
successful. There'll be more people here—there’s the 
May 7, 1915 
War and they just can’t help it! So, do you know what 
I’m going to do, Jack?” 
“Nary a know,” I answered illiterately. 
“T’m going to lease that brick, two-story new Farm- 
house the Hiltons have lately completed. I’ve found 
that owing to a bereavement, they’re not to be here.” 
“Hallelujah!” I ejaculated. Then corrected my 
faux-pas with “Not at their bereavement, of course, but 
at the fact that your lease will stop this bungalowing be- 
fore it begins to get virulent.” 
“T am not doing it on that account,” pouted Valma, 
“but, you see, if I don’t nail it at once, somebody else 1s 
certain to grab it!” 
I kissed her forthwith, for she does have such good 
judgment. 
Some of the North Shore Islands 
By HELENE SHERMAN 
Mystery Island as Seen from the Railroad Station at West Manchester. 
HE islands along the North Shore which le in an 
almost unbroken line the entire length of the coast 
form a most fascinating feature of the varied scenery 
along this famed resort section. Some are large; some are 
small; almost all are rocky. They have unusual names, 
which must have arisen from stories of wonderful interest 
if we could hear them all. From Marblehead Neck to the 
tip of Cape Ann the line is particularly regular, so that 
it has all the appearance of a promontory, which in ages 
past must have been broken down by the ceaseless beat- 
ing of the Atlantic, leaving, as the only reminder of a 
beautiful land, these islands. Years ago, perhaps, a vir- 
gin forest land with mighty trees sheltered the mainland 
from the stormswept ocean, forming splendid harbors. 
There game was abundant and there, the red man held 
his sway. To us ten long, eventful centuries ago,—to 
the Sphinx and Pyramids, only a flash of time! 
The dreamer has the support of the scientist in this 
belief. Agassiz, upon the occasion of his first visit to 
the Beverly Beach, ventured the surmise that the pic- 
turesque line of islands before him had once been a con- 
tinuous promontory. John H. Sears has been particular- 
ly interested in the subsidence along the North Shore, 
and has made some interesting researches. He found 
stumps of several species, such as the white pine, swamp 
cedar, spruce and ash, in leaf mould and peat beds, one 
to three feet thick, at Nahant. These were covered by 
washed sand and stones, under six to thirteen feet of 
water. At Mingo Beach, Pride’s Crossing, is a peat 
meadow full of the sunken stumps of forest trees; and 
in the Manchester section are a number of such ex- 
amples. Near Chubb’s Island, in the Manchester Harbor, 
at a depth of about eleven feet below high water mark, 
may be seen remains of an enormous, oak stump.  Di- 
vested of sap wood, it is fully twelve feet in diameter 
inside the buttresses. Not far from Chubb’s Island, just 
inside Great and Little Ram, are stumps of white pine 
and oak in leaf mould. At Lobster Cove logs of spruce 
have been found, and red cedar stumps with only 
the heart remaining. 
Magnolia harbor has one of the most familiar ex- 
amples of sunken trees along the Shore. It is a large 
oak stumps, which is only four feet below low water, 
and therefore easily discernible. A large area of sub- 
merged trees was discovered in 1866 at Forest Cove, 
lying southwest of Cape Hedge (Briar Neck), Glouces- 
ter, noteworthy particularly for the diversity of species 
it offered. ‘The stumps were of red cedar, pitch pine, 
maple and birch. It would seem from these facts that, 
at the accepted rate of subsidence, about two feet for 
each century, the dreamer’s vision of a land in normal 
position and trees in full growth a thousand or twelve 
hundred years ago, where the green waves of the Atlan- 
tic now wash our shores, is close to reality. 
Beautiful as the promontory must have been, we 
cannot find it in our hearts to regret that “Nature, the 
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