The Merrimack River: its source and its tributaries. Embracing a history of manufactures, and of the towns along its course; their geography, topography, and products, with a description of the magnificent natural scenery about its upper waters./ By J. W. Meader.

ITS SOURCE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
(print cloths and sheetings), capital, three hundred and sixty thousand dollars; and various other establishments.
Plum Island, at the mouth of this river (Merrimack), to whose
formation, perhaps, these very banks have sent their contribution, is
a similar desert of drifting sand, of various colors, blown into graceful curves by the wind. It is a mere sand-bar exposed, stretching
nine miles parallel to the coast, and, exclusive of the marsh on the
inside, rarely more than half a mile wide. There are but half a
dozen houses on it, and it is almost without a tree or a sod, or any
green thing with. which a countryman is familiar. The thin vegetation stands half buried in the sand as in drifting snow. The only
shrub, the beach plum, which gives the island its name, grows but a
few feet high; but this is so abundant that parties of a hundred at
once come from the main land and down the Merrimack, in September, and pitch their tents, and gather the plums, which are good to
eat raw and to preserve. The graceful and delicate beach pea, too,
grows abundantly amid the sand; and several strange, moss-like,
and succulent plants. The island for its whole length is scalloped
into low hills, not more than twenty feet high, by the wind, and,
excepting a faint trail on the edge of the marsh, is as trackless as
Sahara. There are dreary bluffs of sand and.valleys ploughed by the
wind, where you might expect to discover the bones of a caravan.
Schooners come from Boston to load with the sand for masons' uses,
and in a few hours the wind obliterates all traces of their work.
Yet ou have only to dig a foot or two anywhere to come tofresh
water; and you are surprised to learn that woodchucks abound here,
and foxes are found, though you see not where they can burrow or
hide themselves. I have walked down the whole length of its broad
beach at low tide, at which time alone you can find a firm ground to
walk on, and probably Massachusetts does not furnish a more grand
and dreary walk. On the sea-side there are only a distant sail and
a few coots to break the grand monotony. A solitary stake stuck
up, or a sharper sand-hill than usual, is remarkable as a landmark for
miles, while for music you hear only the ceaseless sound of the surf,
and the dreary peep of the beach-birds." *
The settlement of Seabrook was commenced in 1638. It lies on
the north side of Newburyport Bay, opposite the mouth of the Mer, Thoreau's "Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers."
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