Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/146

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132
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

esting in such weather as yesterday, where the most terrene colors are seen. The wet earth and sand, and especially subsoil, are very invigorating sights.

It is remarkable that the spots where I find most arrow-heads, etc., being light, dry soil (as the Great Fields, Clamshell Hill, etc.), are among the first to be bare of snow and free from frost. It is very curiously and particularly true, for the only parts of the northeast section of the Great Fields which are so dry that I do not slump there, are those, small in area, where perfectly bare patches of sand occur, and there, singularly enough, the arrowheads are particularly common. Indeed, in some cases, I find them only on such bare spots, a rod or two in extent, where a single wigwam might have stood, and not half a dozen rods off in any direction. Yet the difference of level may not be more than a foot, if there is any. It is as if the Indians had selected precisely the driest spots on the whole plain with a view to their advantage at this season. If you were going to pitch a tent to-night on the Great Fields, you would inevitably pitch on one of those spots, or else lie down in water or mud, or on ice. It is as if they had chosen the site of their wigwams at this very season of the year.

March 14, 1842. It is not easy to find one