The eastern part of the State can be described almost wholly in terms of the junction of sea and land, though there is one small river, the Merrimack, which is important not on account of its very short navigable portion but for the water-power it pro vides by its fall. The coast-line, owing to its peculiar form, ex tends for about 25om., with a number of good harbours. The enor mous water area included between the two points of Cape Ann and Cape Cod is known as Massachusetts bay, with the designa tion Cape Cod bay for its southern portion. Among the harbours, all of which are excellent, may be mentioned those of Salem, Gloucester, Marblehead, Boston and Provincetown on the east, and Buzzard's Bay, a popular yachting resort, on the south. The northern part of the eastern shore is somewhat rocky and pictur esque, whereas the long "pot-hook," or encircling arm of Cape Cod peninsula (Barnstable county), is low and sandy. Almost the entire coast is lined with summer resorts, those gathered north of Boston giving to that section the nickname of the "Gold Coast," owing to the great wealth concentrated there, whereas Cape Cod is as yet somewhat simpler, attracting the more conservative old families and the intellectual and aesthetic, including a somewhat noted artistic and literary colony at Provincetown. At Wood's Hole on Buzzard's bay is the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries station with a marine biological laboratory. Leaving the mainland, there are several islands to the south, two of them, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, being of considerable size and importance. Martha's Vineyard, a little the larger (about 9 by 2om.), has a good harbour which, aside from summer yachting, is resorted to by storm-bound vessels avoiding the dangerous shoals which lie to the south-east of the State.
The physical features thus briefly described, have had a marked effect upon the history of Massachusetts at every period. In the colonial days, when waterways provided the only means of travel, the absence of any large river leading to the interior retarded de velopment of the sections lying hack of the coast, prevented the development of the fur trade and led the people to look to fisher ies and commerce for their livelihood, an influence which was strengthened by the rather poor soil of most of the State. This latter fact also determined that Massachusetts farms should be mostly small, and prevented, as did the climate, the growth of large estates and a slave economy as in the South. The broken char acter of the eastern upland has had a marked effect also, the richer valleys having afforded moderate ease and comfort, which resulted in conservative politics, whereas the "hill towns" were poorer, rad ical in politics, and largely abandoned when a changed economic situation and western expansion opened new opportunities for their dwellers. The fact that the Connecticut river merely ran through the State, flowing thence into another, led the inhabitants of this richest of all sections to ally themselves rather with their neighbours to the south in Connecticut than with their own fellow citizens to the east. To the west of this, the mountainous and
somewhat rugged land gave special character to its inhabitants who have always shown themselves more democratic and radical than those in the mercantile towns of the seaboard. As a whole, the mountain barrier to the west long tended to isolate New England from the rest of the country, to preserve the New Eng land type, and to produce a certain provinciality of outlook in which Massachusetts shared. Although railways overcame this iso lation to some extent, the great traffic from the west goes to New York rather than Boston, and both commerce and manufactures are declining relatively to those in competing States. On the other hand, the beautiful scenery and charm of summer life are at tracting more and more people and the motor car is bringing un expected prosperity to villages which two decades ago seemed doomed.
Climate.—The winters are long and extremely severe, passing through a very short spring abruptly into summer, a winter which Henry Adams said is "always the effort to live" and a summer which is "tropical licence." The autumn is apt to be fine, and the air, especially in the Berkshire hills, dry, cool and bracing. Al though varying in different parts of the State, the annual extremes of temperature are about 2o° below zero to oo° or more above, with a mean average at Boston of 48 degrees. The mean summer average throughout the State is 7o° and the winter (at Williams town) 23 degrees. The lowest recorded temperature is —28' in the Connecticut valley. The annual precipitation varies from 38 to 48in., evenly distributed through the year. There is much fog along the coast. Nantucket and portions of Cape Cod are located in a somewhat different climatic belt in which the temperatures are milder with a larger proportion of sunshine in the year.
Fauna and Flora.—There is little that is distinctive in either as differentiated from New England as a whole. The State is a meeting place, however, for many southern and northern species of which it forms respectively, the northern and southern limits. It is, for example, the northern limit of such trees as the holly and Tupelo, the latter occasionally found in southern New Hamp shire also. There is a small colony of prickly pear cactus in Nan tucket. It is also the northern limit of many insects, notably the 17-year locust. Among the birds likewise limited are the seaside sparrow, blue-winged warbler, prairie warbler and quail. On Martha's Vineyard there is a rapidly dwindling colony of the al most extinct heath hen. The most remarkable feature of the State from the standpoint of its fauna and flora is the influence of Cape Cod which stretches out to sea and deflects the current of the Gulf stream. To the south of the Cape are found many southern fishes and other marine creatures, including the Portuguese man of-war. In the cold waters on the north side of the Cape the fish and invertebrates are entirely different so that it is said that no other barrier makes so sharp a dividing line in ocean faunas.