"The sea was meant to be looked at from the shore as the mountains from the plain." - James Russell Lowell
The word "seascape" first appeared in Webster's Dictionary in 1864.
The word "seascape" first appeared in Webster's Dictionary in 1864.
(Waves from the Jantzen Photo Archive)
Nothing else that summer offers can match the delight of a visit to the sea shore. The sound of the waves, the smell of the salt, the cries of the birds stir the imagination even before the ocean comes into view. To reach the water's edge, where the worlds of solid and liquid meet, is to arrive at the place where life started. The kingdoms of Neptune (the sea) and Gaia (earth) meet and overlap on the tidal flats and in the salt marshes.
LIFE AND DEATH OF A SALT MARSH
by John & Mildred Teal Boston, Atlantic-Little brown: 1969 500.9 TEA
Along the Atlantic coast, microcosms of life' beginngings - tidal marshes - come and go each day with the tides. At low tide sea oats and spartina grasses bend before the breeze. The admixture of salt and water and grasses creates a pleasant, recognizable aroma. When the resulting peat bogs are disturbed by digging or filling, or used a s a dump, the smell becomes odoriferous: like rotten eggs.
About fifty thousand years ago when the Laurentide Glacier retreated to the north from whence it had come, it left behind piles of rocks, sand and gravel that we have given odd names: moraines; drumlins; eskers. When European settlers arrived in North America, they naturally preferred to cultivate the fertile marshlands near the shore when they could. Tilling the rocky soils of New England was hard work but, so too, was keeping the persistent tides at bay. Having set themselves down in the path of the Atlantic Flyway, the settlers also began hunting the myriad shore birds.
Marshes, watery already, often have rivers running through them, called 'guzzles.' They are drainage rivers created by the tides, bringing fresh water to the sea. Salt determines the ecology of the marshes, as only certain hardy plants thrive in these conditions. Spartina is one such grass, an annual above the water and a perennial below. Cranberries grow well in the peaty bogs and blue beach plums (prunus maritima) root in the rills made by the wind on the sand dunes. Since colonial times there has been a cottage industry making jams and jellies from the fruits. Visit http://www.beachplum.cornell.edu/ for information about efforts to preserve the beach plum and its habitat.
The animals that live in the marsh adapted to cope with widely varying conditions in their habitat. Salinity, extreme fluctuations in temperature, and exposure are their facts of life. Tide pools are home to blue crabs that borrow into the mud at low tide. along with sheepshead, marsh minnows, insects, and algae that live on the surface of the water.
Dumping and the effects of mosquito control have diminished the coastal marshes, as has the filling in of marshes to make more space for settlement in attractive locations. A large portion of Boston's Back bay was created by slicing off the top part of beacon Hill. Moving earth around has contributed to the silting in of coastal inlets.
John Teal was an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Center. Mildred Teal was a naturalist and writer. Together they bring a poetic sense to scientific explicati
LIFE AND DEATH OF A SALT MARSH
by John & Mildred Teal Boston, Atlantic-Little brown: 1969 500.9 TEA
Along the Atlantic coast, microcosms of life' beginngings - tidal marshes - come and go each day with the tides. At low tide sea oats and spartina grasses bend before the breeze. The admixture of salt and water and grasses creates a pleasant, recognizable aroma. When the resulting peat bogs are disturbed by digging or filling, or used a s a dump, the smell becomes odoriferous: like rotten eggs.
About fifty thousand years ago when the Laurentide Glacier retreated to the north from whence it had come, it left behind piles of rocks, sand and gravel that we have given odd names: moraines; drumlins; eskers. When European settlers arrived in North America, they naturally preferred to cultivate the fertile marshlands near the shore when they could. Tilling the rocky soils of New England was hard work but, so too, was keeping the persistent tides at bay. Having set themselves down in the path of the Atlantic Flyway, the settlers also began hunting the myriad shore birds.
Marshes, watery already, often have rivers running through them, called 'guzzles.' They are drainage rivers created by the tides, bringing fresh water to the sea. Salt determines the ecology of the marshes, as only certain hardy plants thrive in these conditions. Spartina is one such grass, an annual above the water and a perennial below. Cranberries grow well in the peaty bogs and blue beach plums (prunus maritima) root in the rills made by the wind on the sand dunes. Since colonial times there has been a cottage industry making jams and jellies from the fruits. Visit http://www.beachplum.cornell.edu/ for information about efforts to preserve the beach plum and its habitat.
The animals that live in the marsh adapted to cope with widely varying conditions in their habitat. Salinity, extreme fluctuations in temperature, and exposure are their facts of life. Tide pools are home to blue crabs that borrow into the mud at low tide. along with sheepshead, marsh minnows, insects, and algae that live on the surface of the water.
Dumping and the effects of mosquito control have diminished the coastal marshes, as has the filling in of marshes to make more space for settlement in attractive locations. A large portion of Boston's Back bay was created by slicing off the top part of beacon Hill. Moving earth around has contributed to the silting in of coastal inlets.
John Teal was an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Center. Mildred Teal was a naturalist and writer. Together they bring a poetic sense to scientific explicati
Sunny Day on The Marsh, Newburyport, 1860s by Martin Johnson HeadeTHE LIFE AND WORKS OF MARTIN JOHNSON HEADE
by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. New Haven, Yale University Press: 1975 759.13 STE
Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) was the painter-poet of the marshes. More than one hundred of his paintings of them survive today, many of them with dates approximate as he produced them so feverishly. Typically the paintings are about twice as wide as they are long, creating a powerful sense of this uniquely horizontal landscape. Human figures, usually located in the foreground, bear witness to the virtues of outdoor life and suggest an ecological relationship between humans and the rest of creation. A keen observer of the natural world, Heade knew and portrayed the restless dance of clouds and sun, the misty seaside air, and the colorful permutations they made on the land.
Heade fell in love with the marshes of Newburyport, Massachusetts on his first visit in 1862. Like Claude Monet he made a series of paintings of haystacks; unlike the Frenchman, Heade's are real agricultural objects and not just occasions to study reflected light. Heade also made a series of drawings of nearby Plum Island River (1867-68) that are outstanding examples of draughtsmanship. With only charcoal and the three classic chalk colors (red, white, and black) he captured water, sky, and birds taking flight.
Wherever he went from then on, Heade sought out marshes, from northern New Jersey to Florida, where he finally settled in St Augustine. Nothing quite equals the serene, meandering brooks of New England: for Heade what came after was merely ponds and puddles.
Sunlight and shadows: Newburyport Marshes by Martin Johnson Heade
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