Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/183

MASSACHUSETTS. its water power. Between the Taconic and the Hoosac mountains flow north and south, respectively, the Hoosac and Housatonic rivers, the former discharging into the Hudson, the latter into Long Island Sound. The valleys of the Connecticut and its branches and the Housatonic are noted for their picturesque scenery. Descending from New Hampshire, the Merrimac flows for thirty-five miles through the northeastern corner of the State, discharging into the Atlantic. It is navigable for small craft as far as Haverhill, 15 miles from its mouth, but is valuable especially for its water power. Other rivers important also chiefly for their water power are the Concord, emptying into the Merrimac at Lowell; the Charles, discharging into Massachusetts Bay at Boston; and the Blackstone and the Taunton, flowing south into Narragansett Bay. The courses of the rivers are marked by broad reaches and sudden declines, instead of uniform gradients. Numerous small glacial lakes are scattered over the State, especially near Cape Cod. Excellent harbors occur at Boston, Lynn, Marblehead, Salem, and Gloucester, and at the mouth of the Merrimac. Boston Harbor is the most important harbor in the State. It has been protected against sanding up by drumlins and pocket beaches, formed outside the harbor, which act as guards to its entrance. South of Boston the inlets are all of the &lsquo;hook spit&rsquo; type, a prominent feature along this part of the coast; but only the harbor of Provincetown is deep enough to accommodate the largest ocean ships. Buzzard's Bay, the third largest indentation of the State, extends thirty miles inland to the west of Cape Cod, and contains New Bedford and Wareham harbors. The former is one of the most important havens in the State.

Massachusetts lies in the middle of the north temperate zone, yet, because of its proximity to the paths of the cyclonic and anticyclonic disturbances, it is strongly influenced by the north winds of winter and by the west and southwest winds of summer, bringing the hot continental air to the coast. The average temperature for January is between 25° and 30°, and for July about 70°. In summer the maximum temperature may rise in places above 100°; in winter the mercury sometimes falls to 10° below zero. The average growing season lasts about six and one-half months. There is an average annual rainfall of 40 inches and over, very evenly distributed through the year. The snowfall is rather heavy, ranging from 30 inches at the southern coast to 60 inches in the northwestern counties. The average annual relative humidity ranges from 80 per cent. on the islands at the southeast to less than 70 per cent. in the northwestern counties. The islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket have an average wind velocity for the year of 14 miles per hour, the highest average recorded in the United States. The normal wind direction for January is northwest, and for July is southwest.

The soil of Massachusetts is largely the result of glacial erosion and deposition. The harder ridges, overridden by the ice, were denuded of all soil; the debris of the granitic hills is too coarse and too new to invite cultivation. The Triassic valley of the Connecticut River gives flat lands of exceeding fertility, while river and lake deposits of worked-over glacial till furnish many alluvial plains of very rich land, but of

limited area. Many glacial lakes are partly filled, and are utilized as cranberry marshes.

For and, see these sections under .

Massachusetts has a very complex geological history. At the beginning of Cambrian time three mountain masses of granitic rock extended across the State to the northeast, alternating with arms of the sea. Cambrian and Ordovician strata were deposited on the shore of the Champlain channel, west of Hoosac Mountain; in a narrow gulf, which extended from Gaspé Point to Worcester; and in a trough extending from western Rhode Island via Portsmouth to Fundy Bay. The Hoosac Mountain and its continuation in the Green Mountains represent the axis of the Appalachian mountain-making in New England, and the older Paleozoic elastics to the west were very strongly metamorphosed—the limestones into marbles, the muds and gravels into slates and schists, and some of the sandstones into quartzites. In Carboniferous time the whole State had been worn down to base level, and coal measures were deposited in the Rhode Island-Nova Scotia basin, and in the Gaspé-Worcester trough. In Triassic time there was an estuary in the Connecticut River Valley extending to the northern boundary of the State, with an average of twenty miles in width. This estuary was gradually filled with sandstones; and during their formation there were great outflows of trap rock. In the later Cretaceous all New England was reduced to base level, the southeastern margin of Massachusetts being under a shallow sea, receiving deposits of clays, as at Gay's Head, in Martha's Vineyard. The State was involved in the uplift of the Appalachian region at the close of the Cretaceous, and was raised into a plateau of moderate elevation. Massachusetts shared with the whole of New England in the denudation and erosion of the Pleistocene glaciation. The ice moved southward and southeastward across the State, discharging into the sea beyond Nantucket and Long Island. It strongly accentuated the southward trending valleys, while the higher ridges were denuded of soil, and the ice, on receding to the north, left the State strewn with a mantle of drift.

. Massachusetts has been for many years the largest producer of granite in the United States. In 1901 the output was valued at $2,616,258, which was about half a million more than the average for a number of years and over 14 per cent. of the total granite production of the country. Limestone is quarried, most of the product being burned into lime; the value of the output in 1901, $244,039, was also a decided increase over preceding years. Some marbles are found in the metamorphosed Paleozoic strata, and small but increasing quantities are quarried. The dikes and sills of trap found in the Connecticut Valley are the very finest road metal, and are used as such in considerable quantities. The sandstones are almost wholly the brown-stones of Triassic age in the Connecticut Valley beds. The value of the production decreased continuously from $649,000 in 1890 to about one-fifth that amount in 1899, but the two following years showed a revival of the industry. Glacial clays are widely distributed. Fire clays are found in the coal measures, rich clay beds in the Cretaceous, and later