Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by Ticknor andFields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes movedto the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.
THE HIGHLAND LIGHT.
ENGLISH AUTHORS IN FLORENCE.
A TOBACCONALIAN ODE.
HALCYON DAYS.
ON TRANSLATING THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.
HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.
ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
OUR LAST DAY IN DIXIE.
THE VANISHERS.
ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.
THE PROCESS OF SCULPTURE.
BRYANT'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.
LEAVES FROM AN OFFICER'S JOURNAL.
ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
WE ARE A NATION.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
This light-house, known to mariners as the Cape Cod or Highland Light,is one of our "primary sea-coast lights," and is usually the first seenby those approaching the entrance of Massachusetts Bay from Europe. Itis forty-three miles from Cape Ann Light, and forty-one from BostonLight. It stands about twenty rods from the edge of the bank, which ishere formed of clay. I borrowed the plane and square, level anddividers, of a carpenter who was shingling a barn near by, and, usingone of those shingles made of a mast, contrived a rude sort of quadrant,with pins for sights and pivots, and got the angle of elevation of thebank opposite the light-house, and with a couple of cod-lines the lengthof its slope, and so measured its height on the shingle. It rises onehundred and ten feet above its immediate base, or about one hundred andtwenty-three feet above mean low water. Graham, who has carefullysurveyed the extremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirtyfeet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty degrees with thehorizon, where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. Nocow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank isfifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highestland in North Truro. Even this vast clay-bank is fast wearing away.Small streams of water trickling down it at intervals of two or threerods have left the intermediate clay in the form of steep Gothic roofsfifty feet high or more, the ridges as sharp and rugged-looking asrocks; and in one place the