Morning journal and courier., 1891-02-12
At Nantucket.

Although there is lighthouse at Man. tuckettown, Sankaty light, ,on Sankaty head, some miles eastward is the one which is seen afar soundward and oceanward. It is on a cliff of blue clay and sand above; somewhat as at Cape God highlands. Although spent two or three days in the quaint old town, got to ':Sconset" as soon as I could, and spent two weeks and enjoyed the stay most thoroughly. If Nantucket is quaint, Sinsconset is more so. Anybody can hardly find more curi- ous little houses in we'll ordered lines, with very narrow streets, than are com pacted together just there in the olden time way and part of the village. I made many sketches of them, and one of them as a group. They are on cliff some thirty feet or above, and broad sound
 beach below it meets the ocean, where the surf is always tumbling, and surf bathers simply hold on to strong rope, and let the waves wash over them. It is interest ing to see native take dory, alady and child with him and go out through that surf. Once out far enough, they can safely rock in the cradle of the deep to their hearts content, and the same man will know how to get them in again ashore all right. Those
 men fish for cod off there in season, and are quite at home in such waters. The cliff gradually rises to Sankaty, and there
 at is near one hundred feet high. After
 strolling along the beach northerly one day, more than mile from the village, I
 concluded I would climb that cliff and
 visit the lighthouse. It was not such an
 easy matter, but I took it some distance
 this side, where thought it looked possi
 ble, and by zig-zagging very gradually got
 up. But what view one gets of the ocean thence, and still more from the stone deck outside the lantern, some sixty or eighty feet higher. Sankaty has flash
 light I think the lens arrangement cost SIC, ,000, made in France; was irst-class
 light ten years ago, and on account of i'm provements may now reckon only as sec ond class.
 If this series of papers is continued shall find occasion to describe some light houses along the coast of Maine, the people who keep them, what the government does, indeed, special paper or two about the lighthouse service of the eastern de- pertinent.
 In climbing that Sankaty cliff I noticed ' vein of peet. Moreover, think the na- | tives take peet out some distance from tho cliff and put it on their lands, perhaps ! burn it also-have nearly forgotten about ! it. As you go from "Sconsetn southward the cliff declines continually on long ! slant. Along that beach saw wrecks- spars and heavy timbers on the sand-the shattered hulks mostly gone to the water line. Interesting, yet sad. They ride the sea no more. It rolls over them as if they
 had no rights there. As Byron says to the ocean: "Man marks the earth with ruin, but here the wrecks are all thine own" 7" The people get much fire wood when g ves- sel goes to pieces down on Pochick "Rip." They tell very interesting stories about shipwrecks. One was of an iron vessel that
 went to pieces there. Indeed, I think no kind of vessel could hold together under such seas as I saw there during a north easter. Pochick Reef so far as know is ! sand reef stretching from southwest to northeast; it may be one mile or three, do not know. But during an northeasterly gale the water gets crowded in between the north and south coast line and north
 east and southwest reef line, and rolls on the reef in triple rows in a magnificent
 yay that would defy anything but an in l stantaneous camera to get it. tried it
 repeatedly in pencil, but there is so much of it, one is baffled. Tho waves tumble ! every way; forward and backward and
 sideways. And they do leap sol I never
 saw anything to compare with it save tho | wild rapids in Niagara river about two 1 miles below the great falls. And down at l the sharp angle where the reef meets tho shore the waters accumulate and are ! piled up, and thrown down as fast, l in wonderful way which indeed defes description q mean in a strong wind
 of several days). But there are other reefs
 along there beside. And standing on tho
 cliff at Sconset looking east, far on the | horizon, one sees every now and then a
 white flash of light on the ocean and | Tfat is Great Bass reef twelve miles awayl 1 There the great ocean pillows lift them
 selves on high, or rather the reef
 throws them into great foam
 caps and spray. One day we
 saw ship inside the reef lines. She stood about, went this way and that, and | finally had to retrace and get out, possibly where she came in, and probably did not
 come within eight or ten miles of us. Now l it is question whether these reefs will ultimately become islandsa That needs more study than I have been able to give it. It takes time and long continued ob-
 servation to generalize and deduce laws from nature's workings, wherein the geol-
 ogists have observed and said much, but
 not all they expect to say. So, even at l Sconset, one does not get the full sweep of
 the ocean pillows on account of the reefs
 about the island Nantucket.
 l To me as place for seeing nature in
 some of her peculiar phases Nantucket is
 far more interesting than Long Branch or
 Rockaway. Those who are only happy in
 crowds know where to go. Those who do
 not like crowds in a summer vacation know
 of other places where they can enjoy them
 selves more. Those who like botanical
 studies find Nantucket interesting. Those
 who like the simple sea folk who live apart
 from the stmadding crowds ignoble strife''
 will find them at Nantucket. But they
 will not find any trees there to speak of
 only berry bushes and beach plums, stunt
 ed pines planted of 8 purpose, and heaths
 and world of vegetation perhaps some l of it peculiar to the island But | went
 for my health and to study the ocean for
 color, for wave forms and anything new
 and interesting to me, and found what wished; and 50 on to Cape Cod.