Chapter 16

(J. Bt.)

1The English word “mason” is from the French, which appears in the two forms,machunandmasson(from the last comes the modern Fr. formmaçon, which means indifferently a bricklayer or mason). In O. H. Ger. the word ismezzo, which survives in the German for a stone-mason,Steinmetz. The med. Lat. form,machio, was connected withmachina—obviously a guess. The Low Lat.,macheriaormaceria(see Du Cange,Glossarium,s.v. macio), a wall, has been suggested as showing some connexion. Some popular Lat. form asmacioormattiois probably the origin. No Teut. word, according to theNew English Dictionary, except that which appears in “mattock,” seems to have any bearing on the ultimate origin.

1The English word “mason” is from the French, which appears in the two forms,machunandmasson(from the last comes the modern Fr. formmaçon, which means indifferently a bricklayer or mason). In O. H. Ger. the word ismezzo, which survives in the German for a stone-mason,Steinmetz. The med. Lat. form,machio, was connected withmachina—obviously a guess. The Low Lat.,macheriaormaceria(see Du Cange,Glossarium,s.v. macio), a wall, has been suggested as showing some connexion. Some popular Lat. form asmacioormattiois probably the origin. No Teut. word, according to theNew English Dictionary, except that which appears in “mattock,” seems to have any bearing on the ultimate origin.

MASPERO, GASTON CAMILLE CHARLES(1846-  ), French Egyptologist, was born in Paris on the 23rd of June 1846, his parents being of Lombard origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and when fourteen years old was already interested in hieroglyphic writing. It was not until his second year at the École Normale in 1867 that Maspero met with an Egyptologist in the person of Mariette, who was then in Paris as commissioner for the Egyptian section of the exhibition. Mariette gave him two newly discovered hieroglyphic texts of considerable difficulty to study, and, self-taught, the young scholar produced translations of them in less than a fortnight, a great feat in those days when Egyptology was still almost in its infancy. The publication of these in the same year established his reputation. A short time was spent in assisting a gentleman in Peru, who was seeking to prove an Aryan affinity for the dialects spoken by the Indians of that country, to publish his researches; but in 1868 Maspero was back in France at more profitable work. In 1869 he became a teacher (répétiteur) of Egyptian language and archaeology at the École des Hautes Études; in 1874 he was appointed to the chair of Champollion at the Collège de France.

In November 1880 Professor Maspero went to Egypt as head of an archaeological mission despatched thither by the French government, which ultimately developed into the well-equipped Institut Français de l’Archéologie Oriental. This was but a few months before the death of Mariette, whom Maspero then succeeded as director-general of excavations and of the antiquities of Egypt. He held this post till June 1886; in these five years he had organized the mission, and his labours for the Bulak museum and for archaeology had been early rewarded by the discovery of the great cache of royal mummies at Deir el-Bahri in July 1881. Maspero now resumed his professorial duties in Paris until 1899, when he returned to Egypt in his old capacity as director-general of the department of antiquities. He found the collections in the Cairo Museum enormously increased, and he superintended their removal from Gizeh to the new quarters at Kasr en-Nil in 1902. The vast catalogue of the collections made rapid progress under Maspero’s direction. Twenty-four volumes or sections were already published in 1909. The repairs and clearances at the temple of Karnak, begun in his previous tenure of office, led to the most remarkable discoveries in later years (seeKarnak), during which a vast amount of excavation and exploration has been carried on also by unofficial but authorized explorers of many nationalities.

Among his best-known publications are the largeHistoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique(3 vols., Paris, 1895-1897, translated into English by Mrs McClure for the S.P.C.K.), displaying the history of the whole of the nearer East from the beginnings to the conquest by Alexander; a smallerHistoire des peuples de l’Orient, 1 vol., of the same scope, which has passed through six editions from 1875 to 1904;Études de mythologie et d’archéologie égyptiennes(Paris, 1893, &c.), a collection of reviews and essays originally published in various journals, and especially important as contributions to the study of Egyptian religion;L’Archéologie égyptienne(latest ed., 1907), of which several editions have been published in English. He also established the journalRecueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes; theBibliothèque égyptologique, in which the scattered essays of the French Egyptologists are collected, with biographies, &c.; and theAnnales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte, a repository for reports on official excavations, &c.Maspero also wrote:Les Inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqaroh(Paris, 1894);Les Momies royales de Deir el-Baharî(Paris, 1889);Les Contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne(3rd ed., Paris, 1906);Causeries d’Égypte(1907), translated by Elizabeth Lee asNew Light on Ancient Egypt(1908).

Among his best-known publications are the largeHistoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique(3 vols., Paris, 1895-1897, translated into English by Mrs McClure for the S.P.C.K.), displaying the history of the whole of the nearer East from the beginnings to the conquest by Alexander; a smallerHistoire des peuples de l’Orient, 1 vol., of the same scope, which has passed through six editions from 1875 to 1904;Études de mythologie et d’archéologie égyptiennes(Paris, 1893, &c.), a collection of reviews and essays originally published in various journals, and especially important as contributions to the study of Egyptian religion;L’Archéologie égyptienne(latest ed., 1907), of which several editions have been published in English. He also established the journalRecueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes; theBibliothèque égyptologique, in which the scattered essays of the French Egyptologists are collected, with biographies, &c.; and theAnnales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte, a repository for reports on official excavations, &c.

Maspero also wrote:Les Inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqaroh(Paris, 1894);Les Momies royales de Deir el-Baharî(Paris, 1889);Les Contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne(3rd ed., Paris, 1906);Causeries d’Égypte(1907), translated by Elizabeth Lee asNew Light on Ancient Egypt(1908).

MASS(O.E.maesse; Fr.messe; Ger.Messe; Ital.messa; from eccl. Lat.missa), a name for the Christian eucharistic service, practically confined since the Reformation to that of the Roman Catholic Church. The various orders for the celebration of Mass are dealt with underLiturgy; a detailed account of the Roman order is given underMissal; and the general development of the eucharistic service, including the Mass, is described in the articleEucharist. The present article is confined (1) to the consideration of certain special meanings which have become attached to the word Mass and are the subject of somewhat acute controversy, (2) to the Mass in music.

The origin of the wordmissa, as applied to the Eucharist, is obscure. The first to discuss the matter is Isidore of Seville (Etym.vi. 19), who mentions an “evening office” (officium vespertinum), a “morning office” (officium matutinum), and an office calledmissa. Of the latter he says: “Missa tempore sacrificii est, quando catechumeni foras mittuntur, clamante levita ‘si quis catechumenus remansit, exeat foras.’ Et inde ‘missa,’ quia sacramentis altaris interesse non possunt, qui nondum regenerati sunt” (“Themissais at the time of the sacrifice, when the catechumens are sent out, the deacon crying, ‘If any catechumen remain, let him go forth.’” Hencemissa, because those who are as yet unregenerate—i.e.unbaptized—may not be present at the sacraments of the altar). This derivation ofthe word Mass, which would connect it with the special formula of dismissal still preserved in the Roman liturgy—Ite, missa est—once generally accepted, is now disputed. It is pointed out that the wordmissalong continued to be applied to any church service, and more particularly to the lections (see Du Cange for numerous examples), and it is held that such services received their name ofmissalfrom the solemn form of dismissal with which it was customary to conclude them; thus, in the 4th centuryPilgrimage of Etheria(Silvia) the wordmissais used indiscriminately of the Eucharist, other services, and the ceremony of dismissal. F. Kattenbusch (Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklop. s.“Messe”) ingeniously, but with little evidence, suggests that the word may have had a double origin and meaning: (1) in the sense ofdimissio, “dismissal”; (2) in that ofcommissio, “commission,” “official duty,”i.e.the exact Latin equivalent of the Greekλειτουργία(seeLiturgy), and hence the conflicting use of the term. It is, however, far more probable that it was a general term that gradually became crystallized as applying to that service in which the dismissal represented a more solemn function. In the narrower sense of “Mass” it is first found in St Ambrose (Ep.20, 4, ed. Ballerini): “Missam facere coepi. Dum offero ...” which evidently identifies themissawith the sacrifice. It continued, however, to be used loosely, though its tendency to become proper only to the principal Christian service is clear from a passage in the 12th homily of Caesarius, bishop of Arles (d. 542): “If you will diligently attend, you will recognize thatmissaeare not celebrated when the divine readings are recited in the church, but when gifts are offered and the Body and Blood of the Lord are consecrated.” The complete service (missa ad integrum), the bishop goes on to say, cannot be had at home by reading and prayer, but only in the house of God, where, besides the Eucharist, “the divine word is preached and the blessing is given to the people.”

Whatever its origin, the word Mass had by the time of the Reformation been long applied only to the Eucharist; and, though in itself a perfectly colourless term, and used as such during the earlier stages of the 16th century controversies concerning the Eucharist, it soon became identified with that sacrificial aspect of the sacrament of the altar which it was the chief object of the Reformers to overthrow. In England, so late as the first Prayer-book of Edward VI., it remained one of the official designations of the Eucharist, which is there described as “The Supper of the Lorde and holy Communion, commonly called the Masse.” This, however, like the service itself, represented a compromise which the more extreme reformers would not tolerate, and in the second Prayer-book, together with such language in the canon as might imply the doctrine of transubstantiation and of the sacrifice, the word Mass also disappears. That this abolition of the word Mass, as implying the offering of Christ’s Body and Blood by the priest for the living and the dead was deliberate is clear from the language of those who were chiefly responsible for the change. Bishops Ridley and Latimer, the two most conspicuous champions of “the new religion,” denounced “the Mass” with unmeasured violence; Latimer said of “Mistress Missa” that “the devil hath brought her in again”; Ridley said: “I do not take the Mass as it is at this day for the communion of the Church, but for a popish device,” &c. (Works, ed. Parker Soc., pp. 121, 120), and again: “In the stead of the Lord’s holy table they give the people, with much solemn disguising, a thing which they call their mass; but in deed and in truth it is a very masking and mockery of the true Supper of the Lord, or rather I may call it a crafty juggling, whereby these false thieves and jugglers have bewitched the minds of the simple people ... unto pernicious idolatory” (ib. p. 409). This language is reflected in the 31st of the Articles of Religion of the Church of England: “Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in which it was commonly said that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain and guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits.” Clearly the word Mass had ceased to be a colourless term generally applicable to the eucharistic service; it was, in fact, not only proscribed officially, but in the common language of English people it passed entirely out of use except in the sense in which it is defined in Johnson’s Dictionary,i.e.that of the “Service of the Romish Church at the celebration of the Eucharist.” In connexion with the Catholic reaction in the Church of England, which had its origin in the “Oxford Movement” of the 19th century, efforts have been made by some of the clergy to reintroduce the term “Mass” for the Holy Communion in the English Church.

See Du Cange,Glossarium,s.v.“Missa”; F. Kattenbusch in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(ed. 1903),s.v.“Messe, dogmengeschichtlich”; for the facts as to the use of the word “Mass” at the time of the Reformation see the article by J. H. Round in theNineteenth Centuryfor May 1897.

See Du Cange,Glossarium,s.v.“Missa”; F. Kattenbusch in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(ed. 1903),s.v.“Messe, dogmengeschichtlich”; for the facts as to the use of the word “Mass” at the time of the Reformation see the article by J. H. Round in theNineteenth Centuryfor May 1897.

(W. A. P.)

Mass, in Music:1.Polyphonic Masses.—The composition of musical settings of the Mass plays a part in the history of music which is of special importance up to and including the 16th century. As an art-form the musical Mass is governed to a peculiar degree by the structure of its text. It so happens that the supremely important parts of the Mass are those which have the smallest number of words, namely theKyrie, important as being the opening prayer; theSanctusandBenedictus, embodying the central acts and ideas of the service; and theAgnus Dei, the prayer with which it concludes. The 16th-century methods were specially fitted for highly developed music when words were few and embodied ideas of such important emotional significance or finality that they could be constantly repeated without losing force. Now the texts of theGloriaandCredowere more voluminous than any others which 16th-century composers attempted to handle in a continuous scheme. The practical limits of the church service made it impossible to break them up by setting each clause to a separate movement, a method by which 16th-century music composers contrived to set psalms and other long texts to compositions lasting an hour or longer. Accordingly, Palestrina and his great contemporaries and predecessors treated theGloriaandCredoin a style midway in polyphonic organization and rhythmic breadth between that of the elaborate motet (adopted in theSanctus) and the homophonic reciting style of the Litany. The various ways in which this special style could be modified by the scale of the work, and contrasted with the broader and more elaborate parts, gave the Mass (even in its merely technical aspects) a range which made it to the 16th-century composer what the symphony is to the great instrumental classics. Moreover, as being inseparably associated with the highest act of worship, it inspired composers in direct proportion to their piety and depth of mind. Of course there were many false methods of attacking the art-problem, and many other relationships, true and false, between the complexity of the settings of the various parts of the Mass and of motets. The story of the action of the council of Trent on the subject of corruption of church music is told elsewhere (seeMusicandPalestrina); and it has been recently paralleled by a decree of Pope Pius X., which has restored the 16th-century polyphonic Mass to a permanent place in the Roman Catholic Church music.

2.Instrumental Masses in the Neapolitan Form.—The next definite stage in the musical history of the Mass was attained by the Neapolitan composers who were first to reach musical coherence after the monodic revolution at the beginning of the 17th century. The fruit of their efforts came to maturity in the Masses of Mozart and Haydn. By this time the resources of music were such that the long and varied text of theGloriaandCredoinevitably either overbalanced the scheme or met with an obviously perfunctory treatment. It is almost impossible, without asceticism of a radically inartistic kind, to treat with the resources of instrumental music and free harmony such passages as that from theCrucifixusto theResurrexit, without an emotional contrast which inevitably throws any natural treatment of theSanctusinto the background, and makes theAgnus Deian inadequate conclusion to the musical scheme. So unfavourable were the conditions of 18th-century music for the formation of a good ecclesiastical style that only a very small proportion of Mozart’s and Haydn’s Mass music may be said to represent their ideas of religious music at all. The best features of their Masses are those that combine faithfulness to the Neapolitan forms with a contrapuntal richness such as no Neapolitancomposer ever achieved. Thus Mozart’s most perfect as well as most ecclesiastical example is his extremely terse Mass in F, written at the age of seventeen, which is scored simply for four-part chorus and solo voices accompanied by the organ with a largely independent bass and by two violins mostly in independent real parts. This scheme, with the addition of a pair of trumpets and drums and, occasionally, oboes, forms the normal orchestra of 18th-century Masses developed or degenerated from this model. Trombones often played with the three lower voices, a practice of high antiquity surviving from a time when there were soprano trombones orcornetti(Zincken, a sort of trebleserpent) to play with the sopranos.

3.Symphonic Masses.—The enormous dramatic development in the symphonic music of Beethoven made the problem of the Mass with orchestral accompaniment almost insoluble. This makes it all the more remarkable that Beethoven’s second and only important Mass (in D,Op.123) is not only the most dramatic ever penned but is, perhaps, the last classical Mass that is thoughtfully based upon the liturgy, and is not a mere musical setting of what happens to be a liturgic text. It was intended for the installation of Beethoven’s friend, the archduke Rudolph, as archbishop of Olmütz; and, though not ready until two years after that occasion, it shows the most careful consideration of the meaning of a church service, no doubt of altogether exceptional length and pomp, but by no means impossible for its unique occasion. Immense as was Beethoven’s dramatic force, it was equalled by his power of sublime repose; and he was accordingly able once more to put the supreme moment of the music where the service requires it to be, viz. in theSanctusandBenedictus. In theAgnus Deithe circumstances of the time gave him something special to say which has never so imperatively demanded utterance since. Europe had been shattered by the Napoleonic wars. Beethoven read the final prayer of the Mass as a “prayer for inward and outward peace,” and, giving it that title, organized it on the basis of a contrast between terrible martial sounds and the triumph of peaceful themes, in a scheme none the less spiritual and sublime because those who first heard it had derived their notions of the horror of war from living in Vienna during its bombardment. Critics who have lived in London during the relief of Mafeking have blamed Beethoven for his realism.

Schubert’s Masses show rather the influence of Beethoven’s not very impressive first Mass, which they easily surpass in interest, though they rather pathetically show an ignorance of the meaning of the Latin words. The last two Masses are later than Beethoven’s Mass in D and contain many remarkable passages. It is evident from them that a dramatic treatment of theAgnus Deiwas “in the air”; all the more so, since Schubert does not imitate Beethoven’s realism.

4.Lutheran Masses.—Music with Latin words is not excluded from the Lutheran Church, and theKyrieandGloriaare frequently sung in succession and entitled a Mass. Thus theFour Short Massesof Bach are called short, not because they are on a small scale, which is far from being the case, but because they consist only of theKyrieandGloria. Bach’s method is to treat each clause of his text as a separate movement, alternating choruses with groups of arias; a method which was independently adopted by Mozart in those larger masses in which he transcends the Neapolitan type, such as the great unfinished Mass in C minor. This method, in the case of an entire Mass, results in a length far too great for a Roman Catholic service; and Bach’s B minor Mass, which is such a setting of the entire test, must be regarded as a kind of oratorio. It thus has obviously nothing to do with the Roman liturgy; but as an independent setting of the text it is one of the most sublime and profoundly religious works in all art; and its singular perfection as a design is nowhere more evident than in its numerous adaptations of earlier works.

The most interesting of all these adaptations is the setting of the words: “Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi.—Amen.” Obviously the greatest difficulty in any elaborate instrumental setting of theCredois the inevitable anti-climax after theResurrexit. Bach contrives to give this anti-climax a definite artistic value; all the more from the fact that hisCrucifixusandResurrexit, and the contrast between them, are among the most sublime and directly impressive things in all music. To the end of hisResurrexitchorus he appends an orchestralritornello, summing up the material of the chorus in the most formal possible way, and thereby utterly destroying all sense of finality as a member of a large group, while at the same time not in the least impairing the force and contrast of the whole—that contrast having ineffaceably asserted itself at the moment when it occurred. After this the aria “Et in spiritum sanctum,” in which the next dogmatic clauses are enshrined like relics in a casket, furnishes a beautiful decorative design on which the listener can repose his mind; and then comes the voluminous ecclesiastical fugue,Confiteor unum baptisma, leading, as through the door and world-wide spaces of the Catholic Church, to that veil which is not all darkness to the eye of faith. At the words “Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum” the music plunges suddenly into a slow series of some of the most sublime and mysterious modulations ever written, until it breaks out as suddenly into avivace e allegroof broad but terse design, which comes to its climax very rapidly and ends as abruptly as possible, the last chord being carefully written as a short note without a pause. This gives the utmost possible effect of finality to the wholeCredo, and contrasts admirably with the coldly formal instrumental end of theResurrexitthree movements further back. Now, such subtleties seem as if they must be unconscious on the part of the composer; yet here Bach is so far aware of his reasons that hisvivace e allegrois an arrangement of the second chorus of a church cantata,Gott man lobet dich in der Stille; and in the cantata the chorus has introductory and final symphonies and a middle section with ada capo!

5.The Requiem.—TheMissa pro defunctisorRequiem Masshas a far less definite musical history than the ordinary Mass; and such special musical forms as it has produced have little in common with each other. The text of theDies Iraeso imperatively demands either a very dramatic elaboration or none at all, that even in the 16th century it could not possibly be set to continuous music on the lines of theGloriaandCredo. Fortunately, however, the Gregoriancanto fermoassociated with it is of exceptional beauty and symmetry; and the great 16th century masters either, like Palestrina, left it to be sung as plain-chant, or obviated all occasion for dramatic expression by setting it in versicles (like their settings of theMagnificatand other canticles) for two groups of voices alternatively, or for the choir in alternation with the plain chant of the priests.

With modern orchestral conditions the text seems positively to demand an unecclesiastical, not to say sensational, style, and probably the only instrumental Requiem Masses which can be said to be great church music are the sublime unfinished work of Mozart (the antecedents of which would be a very interesting subject) and the two beautiful works by Cherubini. These latter, however, tend to be funereal rather than uplifting. The only other artistic solution of the problem is to follow Berlioz, Verdi and Dvořák in the complete renunciation of all ecclesiastical style.

Brahms’sDeutsches requiemhas nothing to do with the Mass for the dead, being simply a large choral work on a text compiled from the Bible by the composer.

(D. F. T.)

MASSA,a town of Tuscany, Italy, the joint capital with Carrara of the province of Massa and Carrara, and sharing with it the episcopal see, 20 m. S.E. of Spezia by rail, 246 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 10,559 (town); 26,118 (commune). The Palazzo Ducale (now the prefecture) was erected in 1701, and was a summer residence of Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Baciocchi, princess of Lucca, who caused the ancient cathedral opposite to be destroyed. The hills round the town yield marble, and there is a narrow-gauge railway to the Marina d’Avenza, where the marble is shipped.

MASSACHUSETTS(an Indian name, originally applied to a tribe of Indians), one of the original thirteen states of the American Union, bounded on the N. by Vermont and New Hampshire, on the E. by the Atlantic, on the S. by Rhode Islandand Connecticut, and on the W. by New York. It lies approximately between 41° 15′ and 42° 50′ N. lat. and 69° 55′ and 73° 30′ W. long. The bulk of its area—which is about 8266 sq. m. (of which 227 are water)—forms a parallelogram of 130 m. E. and W., 46 m. N. and S., the additional area lying in a projection at the S.E. and a lesser one at the N.E., which give the mainland a breadth of 90 m. where it borders upon the ocean, while the general irregularity of the coast-line gives a sea frontage of about 250 m.

Physical Features.—The east and south-east portions are in general undulating or level, the central hilly and broken, and the west rugged and mountainous. (For geological details seeUnited States:Geology, ad fin.) The Hoosac Hills (1200-1600 ft. high), separating the valleys of the Housatonic and Connecticut, are a range of the Berkshires, a part of the Appalachian system, and a continuation of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and with the Taconic range on the west side of the Housatonic Valley—of which the highest peaks are Greylock, or “Saddleback” (3535 ft.), and Mt Williams (3040 ft.)—in the extreme north-west corner of the state, form the only considerable elevated land.1Bordering on the lowlands of the Connecticut, Mt Tom (1214 ft.) and a few other hills (Mt Holyoke, 954 ft.; Mt Toby, 1275) form conspicuous landmarks. East of this valley the country continues more or less hilly and rocky, but the elevations eastward become increasingly slight and of little consequence. Mt Lincoln (1246 ft.) and especially Mt Wachusett (2108 ft.), to the east in a level country, are very exceptional. The Blue Hills in Milton are the nearest elevations to the coast, and are conspicuous to navigators approaching Boston. The south-east corner of the state is a sandy lowland, generally level with a slightly elevated ridge (Manomet) south of Plymouth, and well watered by ponds.With the exception of this corner, Massachusetts is a part of the slanting upland that includes all of southern New England. This upland is an uplifted peneplain of subaerial denudation,2now so far advanced in a “second” cycle of weathering and so thoroughly dissected that to an untrained eye it appears to be only a country of hills confusedly arranged. The general contour of the upland, marked by a remarkably even sky-line, is evident at almost every locality in the state. In the nature and position of the upland rocks—mainly crystalline schists and gneisses, excessively complicated and disordered in mass, and also internally deformed—there is found abundant proof that the peneplain is a degraded mountain region. The upland is interrupted by the rivers, and on the coast by great lowlands, and is everywhere marked by hills somewhat surmounting the generally even skyline. Monadnock (in New Hampshire, near N.E. Massachusetts), the Blue Hills near Boston, Greylock, in the north-west, and Wachusett in the centre, are the most commanding remnant-summits (known generically as “Monadnocks”) of the original mountain system. But in the derivant valley peneplains developed in the present cycle of denudation, and there are residual summits also; in the Connecticut Valley trap ridges, of which Mt Tom and Mt Holyoke are the best examples; at Mt Holyoke, lava necks; occasionally in the lowlands, ridges of resistant sandstone, like Deerfield Mountain near Northampton; in the Berkshire Valley, summits of resistant schists, like Greylock, the highest summit in the state. The larger streams have cut their channels to very moderate gradients, but the smaller ones are steeper. The Housatonic and Millers (and the Connecticut also, but not in its course within Massachusetts alone) afford beautiful examples of the dependence of valley breadth upon the strike of soft or harder rocks across the stream. The Connecticut lowland is cut from 5 to 18 m. wide in soft sandstones and shales. The glacial era has left abundant evidences in the topography of the state. The ice covered even the Monadnocks. Till drumlins, notably abundant on the lowland about Boston and the highland near Spencer; morainic hills, extending,e.g.all along Cape Cod; eskers, kames and river terraces afford the plainest evidences of the extent of the glacial sheet. The Berkshire country—Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties—is among the most beautiful regions of the United States. It is a rolling highland dominated by long, wooded hill-ridges, remarkably even-topped in general elevation, intersected and broken by deep valleys. Scores of charming lakes lie in the hollows. The district is often called the Lake Region of America, partly from the comparableness of its scenic beauties with the English Lake Country (Matthew Arnold, however, wrote: “The country is pleasing but not to be compared with Westmoreland. It is wider and opener, and neither hills nor lakes are so effective.”), and partly from the parallelism of literary associations. It has become since 1850, and especially in much more recent years, a favoured resort of summer residents. Owing to topography, and also to the manner in which Massachusetts was settled, the western counties were long connected commercially more closely with New York than with Massachusetts, and this territory was long in dispute between these two states.The Connecticut is the most considerable stream, and is navigable by small craft. Its valley, much the richest portion of the state agriculturally, is celebrated for the quiet variety and beauty of its scenery. The Housatonic, in portions placid, in others wild and rapid, winding along the deflecting barrier of the Hoosac Hills, is the most beautiful river of the state, despite the mercantile use of its water-power. The Merrimac, the second stream of the state in volume, runs in a charming valley through the extreme north-east corner, and affords immensely valuable water-power at Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill.South of Cohasset the shore is sandy, with a few isolated rocky ledges and boulders. About Boston, and to the north of it, the shore is rocky and picturesque. Cape Cod, like a human arm doubled at the elbow, 40 m. from shoulder to elbow and 30 from elbow to hand, is nowhere more than a few miles broad. It is a sandy ridge, dotted with summer resorts and cottages. Cape Ann has a rugged interior and a ragged, rocky coast. It, too, is a summer recreation ground, with much beautiful scenery. Boston Harbor (originally known as Massachusetts Bay, a name which now has a much broader signification) is the finest roadstead on the coast. The extreme hook of the Cape Cod Peninsula forms Provincetown Harbor, which is an excellent and capacious port of refuge for vessels approaching Boston. Salem Harbor is the most considerable other haven on Massachusetts Bay; on Buzzard’s Bay New Bedford has a good harbour, and on the Atlantic coast are the excellent harbours of Gloucester and Marblehead, both frequented by summer residents. Gloucester has the largest fishery interests of any place in the country, and is one of the chief fishing ports of the world. Buzzard’s Bay is also a popular yachting ground, and all about its shores are towns of summer residence. Wood’s Hole is a station of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, and a marine biological laboratory is there.The principal islands lie off the south coast. The largest is Martha’s Vineyard, about 20 m. long, with an extreme breadth of about 9½ m. It has in Vineyard Haven (Holmes’s Hole) a spacious harbour, much frequented by wind-bound vessels seeking a passage round Cape Cod. The island is covered with stunted trees. Its population was formerly dependent wholly upon the sea, but its climate has made it a popular summer resort, Oak Bluffs being one of the chief resorts of the Atlantic coast. Farther east, Nantucket, a smaller island of triangular shape, is likewise the home of a seafaring folk who still retain in some degree primitive habits, though summer visitors are more and more affecting its life.Flora and Fauna.—Massachusetts lies entirely in the humid area of the Transition life-zone, with the exception of the extreme north-western corner of the state, which lies in the Boreal zone. Thus the original native trees and plants were those common to New England and northern New York. The presence of a dense population has driven out some, and brought in others, including some noxious weeds. The larger wild animals have disappeared, excepting an occasional black bear or deer. Of the smaller fur-bearing animals, the beaver was long ago exterminated, the otter is seen very rarely, and the mink only in the most isolated districts; but foxes, skunks, weasels, musk-rats, rabbits, and grey and red squirrels are not uncommon. Copperhead snakes and rattlesnakes arc occasionally seen, and there are several species of harmless serpents. Of game birds the most characteristic is the partridge (ruffed grouse), exclusively a woodland bird; the Wilson’s snipe and the woodcock are not uncommon in favourable localities, and several species of ducks are found especially in the bays and marshes near the coast during the seasons of migration. A stray eagle is sometimes seen. Very interesting to ornithologists are the few heath hens, the eastern representative of the prairie hen (pinnated grouse), which are found on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, and are the sole survivors in the eastern states of one of the finest of American game birds, now practically exterminated even on the western plains. There are many insectivorous birds; among the song birds are the hermit thrush, the wood thrush, the Wilson’s thrush, the brown thrasher, the bobolink, the catbird, the oven bird, the house wren, the song sparrow, the fox sparrow, the vesper sparrow, the white-throated sparrow (Peabody bird), the gold-finch and the robin. Brook trout are found, especially in the streams in the western part of the state, and bass, pickerel, perch and smaller fish occur in the rivers and other inland waters. Fish are so abundant on the coast that the cod is sometimes used as an emblem of the state; thus a figure of one hangs in the representatives’ chamber at the State House. The artificial propagation and preservation of salmon and other edible fresh-water fish have been carried on successfully under the supervision of a state commission. The commonwealth has expended large sums since 1890 in a vain attempt to exterminate the gipsy moth (Ocneria, or more exactlyPorthetria, dispar), accidentally allowed to escape in 1869 by a French naturalist.Climate.—The climate is trying, showing great extremes of temperature (20° F. below zero to 100° above) and marked local variations. The south-eastern coast and islands are mildest. The mean averagetemperature of Boston is 48° F. In the interior it is slightly lower. The mean summer temperature generally over the state is about 70° F. Changes are often sudden, and the passage from winter to summer is through a rapid spring. The ocean tempers the climate considerably on the seaboard. Boston Harbor has been frozen over in the past, but steamtugs plying constantly now prevent the occurrence of such obstruction. In the elevated region in the west the winters are decidedly severe, and the springs and summers often late and cold. Williamstown has a winter mean of about 23° F. The yearly precipitation is about 39 to 45 in., decreasing inland, and is evenly distributed throughout the year. Fogs are common on the coast, and east wind drizzles; the north-east winds being the weather bane of spring and late autumn. In the summer and the autumn the weather is commonly fine, and often most beautiful; and especially in the Berkshires a cool, pure and elastic atmosphere prevails, relatively dry, and altogether delightful.Agriculture.—The soil, except in some of the valleys, is not naturally fertile; and sandy wastes are common in the south-east parts. High cultivation, however, has produced valuable market-gardens about Boston and the larger towns; and industry has made tillage remunerative in most other parts. The gross value of agricultural products is not great compared with that of other industries, but they are of great importance in the economy of the state. The total value of farm property in 1900 was $182,646,704, including livestock valued at $15,798,464. Of the increase in the total value of farm property between 1850 and 1900 more than half was in the decade 1890-1900; this increase being due partly to the rising value of suburban realty, but also to a development of intensive farming that has been very marked since 1880. The total value of farm products in 1899 was $42,298,274 (expenditure for fertilizers $1,320,600); crops representing 54.7 and animal products 45.3% of this total. The leading crops and their percentages of the total crop value were hay and forage (39.1%), vegetables (23.9%), fruits and nuts (11.7%), forest products (8.4%), and flowers and plants (7.1%). Of the animal products 67.3% were dairy products, and 20.8% poultry and eggs. Cereals3have been for many years declining, although Indian corn is a valuable subsidiary to the dairy interest, which is the most thriving farm industry. The value of farms on which dairying was the chief source of income in 1900 was 46% of the total farm value of the state; the corresponding percentages for livestock, vegetables, hay and grain, flowers and plants, fruit and tobacco, being respectively 14.6, 10.2, 8.0, 4.2, 3.2, and 1.8%. The shrinkage of cereal crops has been mainly responsible for the idea that Massachusetts is agriculturally decadent. Parallel to this shrinkage was the decrease in ranging sheep (82.0% from 1850-1900; 34.2% from 1890-1900), and cattle, once numerous in the hill counties of the west, and in the Connecticut Valley; Boston, then ranking after London as the second wool market of the world, and being at one time the chief packing centre of the country. Dairy cows increased, however, from 1850 to 1900 by 41.9% (1890-1900, 7.3%). The amount of improved farmland decreased in the same period 39.4%, decreasing even more since 1880 than earlier, and amounting in 1900 to no more than 25.1% of the area of the state; but this decrease has been compensated by increased value of products, especially since the beginning of intensive agriculture. An unusual density of urban settlement, furnishing excellent home markets and transportation facilities, are the main props of this new interest. Worcester and Middlesex counties are agriculturally foremost. Tobacco, which has been cultivated since colonial times, especially since the Civil War, is grown exclusively in the Connecticut Valley or on its borders. In the swamps and bogs of the south-east coast cranberry culture is practised, this district producing in 1900 three-fifths of the entire yield of the United States. “Abandoned farms” (aggregating, in 1890, 3.4% of the total farm area, and 6.85% in Hampshire county) are common, especially in the west and south-east.Mines and Mining.—Granite is the chief mineral, and granite quarrying is the principal mineral industry of the state. In 1900 the value of manufactures based primarily upon the products of mines and quarries was $196,930,979, or 19% of the state’s total manufactured product. In 1906 Massachusetts led all states in the value of its granite output, but in 1907 and 1908 it was second to Vermont. The value of the product (including a small output of igneous rocks) was in 1903, $2,351,027; 1904, $2,554,748; 1905, $2,251,319; 1906, $3,327,416; 1907, $2,328,777; 1908, $2,027,463.Granite boulders were used for construction in Massachusetts as early as 1650. Systematic quarrying of siliceous crystalline rocks in New England began at Quincy in about 1820. The Gloucester quarries, opened in 1824, were probably the next to be worked regularly. The principal granite quarries are in Milford, (Worcester county), Quincy and Milton (Norfolk county), Rockport (Essex county) and Becket (Berkshire county). Of the fourteen quarries of “Milford granite,” twelve are in the township of that name, and two in Hopkinton township, Middlesex county. B. K. Emerson and J. H. Perry classify this granite as post-Cambrian. They describe it4as “a compact, massive rock, somewhat above medium grain, and of light colour. The light flesh colour of the feldspar, and the blue of the quartz give it in some places a slight pinkish tint, and it is now much used as a building-stone under the name of ‘pink granite.’”The Quincy granite district lies around the north-east end of the Blue Hill region, about 11 m. south of Boston. For monumental purposes this granite is classified as “medium,” “dark,” and “extra dark.” Quincy granite takes a very high polish, owing to the absence of mica and to the coarser cleavage of its hornblende and augite. The lightest of the monumental stone quarried at Quincy is called gold-leaf; it is bluish-green gray, speckled with black and light yellow brown. Another variety has small, rather widely separated cherry-red dots.The Rockport granite is found along or near the seashore, between Rockport and Bay View, and within about three-quarters of a mile of Cape Ann. The granite is of two kinds, known commercially as “grey granite” and “green granite.” Both varieties are hard and take a very high polish.The Becker granite (known as “Chester dark” and “Chester light”) is a muscovite-biotite granite varying from medium grey to medium bluish grey colour, and fine in texture. It is used principally for monuments.In 1907 Massachusetts ranked sixth among the states in the value of its trap rock product ($432,604), and eighth in sandstone ($243,328). The value of the marble produced in the same year was $212,438, the state ranking fifth in the value of the total product and fourth in building-marble. Other minerals are emery, limestone and quartz. The state ranked fifth in 1906 in the total value of stone quarried ($4,333,616), and eighth in 1908 ($2,955,195). The output of lime in 1908 was 107,813 tons, valued at $566,022. Second in value to the various stones were the clay products of the state, which were valued in 1906 at $2,172,733 (of which $1,415,864 was the value of common brick) and in 1908 at $1,647,362 (of which $950,921 was the value of common brick). There are many mineral springs in the state, more than half being in Essex and Middlesex counties. The total amount of mineral waters sold in 1908 was valued at $227,907. In that year the total value of the minerals and mining products of the state was $5,925,949. Gold has been found in small quantities in Middlesex, Norfolk and Plymouth counties.Manufactures.—Though only four states of the Union are smaller, only three exceeded Massachusetts in 1905 in the value of manufactured products (six exceeding it in population); and this despite very scant native resources of raw materials and a very limited home market. Historical priority of development, exceptionally extensive and well utilized water-power, and good transportation facilities are largely responsible for the exceptional rank of Massachusetts as a manufacturing state. Vast water-power is developed on the Merrimac at Lawrence and Lowell, and on the Connecticut at South Hadley, and to a less extent at scores of other cities on many streams and artificial ponds; many of the machines that have revolutionized industrial conditions since the beginning of the factory system have been invented by Massachusetts men; and the state contains various technical schools of great importance. In 1900 the value of manufactures was $1,035,198,989, an increase from 1890 of 16.6%; that from 1880 to 1890 having been 40.7%. In textiles—cottons, worsteds, woollens and carpets—in boots and shoes, in rubber foot-wear, in fine writing paper, and in other minor products, it is the leading state of the country. The textile industries (the making of carpets and rugs, cotton goods, cotton smallwares, dyeing and finishing textiles, felt goods, felt hats, hosiery and knit goods, shoddy, silk and silk goods, woollen goods, and worsted goods), employed 32.5% of all manufacturing wage earners in 1905, and their product ($271,369,816) was 24.1% of the total, and of this nearly one-half ($129,171,449) was in cotton goods, being 28.9% of the total output of the country, as compared with 11% for South Carolina, the nearest competitor of Massachusetts. There is a steadily increasing product of fine grade fabrics. The output of worsted goods in 1905 ($51,973,944) was more than three-tenths that of the entire country, Rhode Island being second with $44,477,596; in Massachusetts the increase in the value of this product was 28.2% between 1900 and 1905. The value of woollen goods in 1905 ($44,653,940) was more than three-tenths of the entire product for the country; and it was 44.6% more than that of 1900. The value of boots and shoes and cut stock in 1905 was $173,612,660, being 23% greater than in 1900; the value of boots and shoes in 1905 ($144,291,426) was 45.1% of the country’s output, that of New York, the second state, being only 10.7%. In this industry, as in the manufacture of cotton goods, Massachusetts has long been without serious rivalry; Brockton, Lynn,Haverhill, Marlboro and Boston, in the order named, being the principal centres. The third industry in 1905 was that of foundry and machine-shop products ($58,508,793), of which Boston and Worcester are the principal centres. Lesser interests, in the order of importance, with the product value of each in 1905, were: rubber goods ($53,133,020), tanned, curried and finished leather ($33,352,999), in the manufacture of which Massachusetts ranked second among the states; paper and wood pulp5($32,012,247), in the production of which the state ranked second among the states of the Union; slaughtering and meat packing ($30,253,838); printing and publishing ($33,900,748, of which $21,020,237 was the value of newspapers and periodicals); clothing ($21,724,056); electrical machinery, apparatus and supplies ($15,882,216); lumber ($12,636,329); iron and steel, steel works and rolling-mills products ($11,947,731; less than in 1900); cordage and twine ($11,173,521), in the manufacture of which Massachusetts was second only to New York; furniture ($11,092,581); malt liquors ($11,080,944); jewelry ($10,073,595), Massachusetts ranking second to Rhode Island; confectionery ($9,317,996), in which Massachusetts was third among the states.(Click to enlarge left side.)(Click to enlarge right side.)Many of these industries have a history going back far into colonial times, some even dating from the first half of the 17th century. Textile products were really varied and of considerable importance before 1700. The policy of the British government towards such industries in the colonial period was in general repressive. The non-importation sentiment preceding the War of Independence fostered home manufactures considerably, and the Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts before the war of 1812, as well as that war itself (despite the subsequent glut of British goods) had a much greater effect; for they mark the introduction of the factory system, which by 1830 was firmly established in the textile industry and was rapidly transforming other industries. Improvements were introduced much more slowly than in England, the cost of cotton machinery as late as 1826 being 50-60% greater in America. The first successful power loom in America was set up at Waltham in 1814. Carding, roving and spinning machines were constructed at Bridgewater in 1786. The first cotton mill had been established in Beverly in 1788, and the first real woollen factory at Byfield in 1794. Woolcard machinery destined to revolutionize the industry was devised by Amos Whittemore (1759-1828) in 1797; spinning jennies were in operation under water-power before 1815. Carpet-weaving was begun at Worcester in 1804. “Not a yard of fancy wool fabric had ever been woven by the power-loom in any country till done by William Crompton at the Middlesex Mills, Lowell, in 1840” (Samuel Lawrence).6The introduction of the remarkably complete machinery of the shoe industry was practically complete by 1865, this being the last of the great industries to come under the full dominance of machinery. At Pittsfield and at Dalton is centred the manufacture of fine writing papers, including that of paper used by the national government for bonds and paper money. Four-fifths of all loft-dried paper produced in the country from 1860-1897 was made within 15 m. of Springfield; Holyoke and South Hadley being the greatest producers. Vulcanized rubber is a Massachusetts invention. Most of the imitation jewelry of the United States is produced at Attleboro and North Attleboro, and in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1905 Boston produced 16.4% of all the manufactures of the state, and Lynn, the second city, which had been fifth in 1900, 4.9%. Some industries which have since become dead or of relatively slight magnitude were once of much greater significance, economically or socially: such as the rum-distilling connected with the colonial slave trade, and various interests concerned with shipbuilding and navigation. The packing of pork and beef formerly centred in Boston; but, while the volume of this business has not diminished, it has been greatly exceeded in the west. For many years Massachusetts controlled a vast lumber trade, drawing upon the forests of Maine, but the growth of the west changed the old channels of trade, and Boston carpenters came to make use of western timber. It was between 1840 and 1850 that the cotton manufactures of Massachusetts began to assume large proportions; and about the same time the manufacture of boots and shoes centred there. Medford ships began to be famous shortly after the beginning of the 19th century, and by 1845 that town employed one quarter of all the shipwrights in the state.Fishing is an important industry. Drift whales were utilized in the earliest years of the colony, and shore boating for the baleen (or “right”) whale—rich in bone and in blubber yielding common oil—was an industry already regulated by various towns before 1650; but the pursuit of the sperm whale did not begin until about 1713. The former industry had died out before the War of Independence; the latter is not yet quite extinct. Nantucket and New Bedford were the centres of the whaling trade, which, for the energy and skill required and the length (three to five years when sailing vessels were employed) of the ever-widening voyages which finally took the fishermen into every quarter of the globe, contributes the most romantic chapters in the history of American commerce. At one time it gave occupation to a thousand ships, but the introduction of petroleum gradually diminished this resource of the lesser ports. The Newfoundland Bank fisheries were of greater economic importance and are still very important. Gloucester is the chief centre of the trade. The value of fishery products in 1895 was $5,703,143, and in 1905 $7,025,249; and 15,694 persons were engaged in the fisheries. Though cod is much the most important fish (in 1905 fresh cod were valued at $991,679, and salted cod at $696,928), haddock (fresh, $1,051,910; salted, $17,194), mackerel (value in 1905, including horse mackerel, $970,876), herring (fresh, $266,699; salted, $114,997), pollock ($267,927), hake ($258,438), halibut ($218,232), and many other varieties are taken in great quantities. The shell fisheries are less important than those of Maine.Commerce.—Already by 1660 New England products were an “important element in the commerce and industries of the mother country” (Weeden). Codfish was perhaps the truest basis of her commerce, which soon came to include the West Indies, Africa and southern Europe. Of fundamental importance was the trade with the French West Indies, licit and illicit, particularly after the Peace of Utrecht (1713). Provisions taken to Newfoundland, poor fish to the West Indies, molasses to New England, rum to Africa and good cod to France and Spain, were the commonest ventures of foreign trade. The English Navigation Acts were generally evaded, and were economically of little effect; politically they were of great importance in Massachusetts as a force that worked for independence. Privateering, piracy and slave-trading—which though of less extent than in Rhode Island became early of importance, and declined but little before the American War of Independence—give colour to the history of colonial trade.Trade with China and India from Salem was begun in 1785 (first voyage from New York, 1784), and was first controlled there, and afterwards in Boston till the trade was lost to New York. The Boston trade to the Canadian north-west coast was begun in 1788. The first regular steamship line from Boston to other American Atlantic ports was established in 1824. In commercial relations the chief port of Massachusetts attained its greatest importance about 1840, when it was selected as the American terminus of the first steamship line (Cunard) connecting Great Britain with the United States; but Boston lost the commercial prestige then won by the failure of the state to promote railway communication with the west, so as to equal the development effected by other cities. The decline of commerce, however, had already begun, manufacturing supplanting it in importance; and this decline was rapid by 1850. From 1840 to 1860 Massachusetts-built ships competed successfully in the carrying trade of the world. Before 1840 a ship of 500 tons was a large ship, but after the discovery of gold in California the size of vessels increased rapidly and their lines were more and more adapted to speed. The limit of size was reached in an immense clipper of 4555 tons, and the greatest speed was attained in a passage from San Francisco to Boston in seventy-five days, and from San Francisco to Cork in ninety-three days. The development of steam navigation for the carrying of large cargoes has driven this fleet from the sea. Only a small part of the exports and imports of Massachusetts is now carried in American bottoms.7The first grain elevator built in Boston, and one of the first in the world, was erected in 1843, when Massachusetts sent Indian corn to Ireland. When the Civil War and steam navigation put an end to the supremacy of Massachusetts wooden sailing ships, much of the capital which had been employed in navigation was turned into developing railway facilities and coasting steamship lines. In 1872 the great fire in Boston made large drains upon the capital of the state, and several years of depression followed. But in 1907 Boston was the second port of the United States in the magnitude of its foreign commerce. In that year the value of imports at the Boston-Charlestown customs district was $123,411,168, and the value of exports was $104,610,908; for 1909 the corresponding figures were $127,025,654 and $72,936,869. Other ports of entry in the state in 1909 were Newburyport, Gloucester, Salem, Marblehead, Plymouth, Barnstable, Nantucket, Edgartown, New Bedford and Fall River. A protective tariff was imposed in early colonial times and protection was generally approved in the state until toward the close of the 19th century, when a strong demand became apparent for reciprocity with Canada and for tariff reductions on the raw materials (notably hides) of Massachusetts manufactures.At the end of 1908 the length of railway lines within the state was 2,109.33 miles. The Hoosac Tunnel, 5¾ m. long, pierces the Hoosac Mountain in the north-west corner of the state, affording a communication with western lines. It cost about $20,000,000, the state lending its credit, and was built between 1855 and 1874. The inter-urban electric railways are of very great importance in the state; in 1908 the total mileage of street and inter-urban electricrailways was 2841.59 m. (2233.85 m. being first main track). The Cape Cod canal, 12 m. long, from Sandwich on Barnstable Bay to Buzzard’s Bay, was begun in June 1909, with a view to shortening the distance by water from Boston to New York and eliminating the danger of the voyage round Cape Cod.

Physical Features.—The east and south-east portions are in general undulating or level, the central hilly and broken, and the west rugged and mountainous. (For geological details seeUnited States:Geology, ad fin.) The Hoosac Hills (1200-1600 ft. high), separating the valleys of the Housatonic and Connecticut, are a range of the Berkshires, a part of the Appalachian system, and a continuation of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and with the Taconic range on the west side of the Housatonic Valley—of which the highest peaks are Greylock, or “Saddleback” (3535 ft.), and Mt Williams (3040 ft.)—in the extreme north-west corner of the state, form the only considerable elevated land.1Bordering on the lowlands of the Connecticut, Mt Tom (1214 ft.) and a few other hills (Mt Holyoke, 954 ft.; Mt Toby, 1275) form conspicuous landmarks. East of this valley the country continues more or less hilly and rocky, but the elevations eastward become increasingly slight and of little consequence. Mt Lincoln (1246 ft.) and especially Mt Wachusett (2108 ft.), to the east in a level country, are very exceptional. The Blue Hills in Milton are the nearest elevations to the coast, and are conspicuous to navigators approaching Boston. The south-east corner of the state is a sandy lowland, generally level with a slightly elevated ridge (Manomet) south of Plymouth, and well watered by ponds.

With the exception of this corner, Massachusetts is a part of the slanting upland that includes all of southern New England. This upland is an uplifted peneplain of subaerial denudation,2now so far advanced in a “second” cycle of weathering and so thoroughly dissected that to an untrained eye it appears to be only a country of hills confusedly arranged. The general contour of the upland, marked by a remarkably even sky-line, is evident at almost every locality in the state. In the nature and position of the upland rocks—mainly crystalline schists and gneisses, excessively complicated and disordered in mass, and also internally deformed—there is found abundant proof that the peneplain is a degraded mountain region. The upland is interrupted by the rivers, and on the coast by great lowlands, and is everywhere marked by hills somewhat surmounting the generally even skyline. Monadnock (in New Hampshire, near N.E. Massachusetts), the Blue Hills near Boston, Greylock, in the north-west, and Wachusett in the centre, are the most commanding remnant-summits (known generically as “Monadnocks”) of the original mountain system. But in the derivant valley peneplains developed in the present cycle of denudation, and there are residual summits also; in the Connecticut Valley trap ridges, of which Mt Tom and Mt Holyoke are the best examples; at Mt Holyoke, lava necks; occasionally in the lowlands, ridges of resistant sandstone, like Deerfield Mountain near Northampton; in the Berkshire Valley, summits of resistant schists, like Greylock, the highest summit in the state. The larger streams have cut their channels to very moderate gradients, but the smaller ones are steeper. The Housatonic and Millers (and the Connecticut also, but not in its course within Massachusetts alone) afford beautiful examples of the dependence of valley breadth upon the strike of soft or harder rocks across the stream. The Connecticut lowland is cut from 5 to 18 m. wide in soft sandstones and shales. The glacial era has left abundant evidences in the topography of the state. The ice covered even the Monadnocks. Till drumlins, notably abundant on the lowland about Boston and the highland near Spencer; morainic hills, extending,e.g.all along Cape Cod; eskers, kames and river terraces afford the plainest evidences of the extent of the glacial sheet. The Berkshire country—Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties—is among the most beautiful regions of the United States. It is a rolling highland dominated by long, wooded hill-ridges, remarkably even-topped in general elevation, intersected and broken by deep valleys. Scores of charming lakes lie in the hollows. The district is often called the Lake Region of America, partly from the comparableness of its scenic beauties with the English Lake Country (Matthew Arnold, however, wrote: “The country is pleasing but not to be compared with Westmoreland. It is wider and opener, and neither hills nor lakes are so effective.”), and partly from the parallelism of literary associations. It has become since 1850, and especially in much more recent years, a favoured resort of summer residents. Owing to topography, and also to the manner in which Massachusetts was settled, the western counties were long connected commercially more closely with New York than with Massachusetts, and this territory was long in dispute between these two states.

The Connecticut is the most considerable stream, and is navigable by small craft. Its valley, much the richest portion of the state agriculturally, is celebrated for the quiet variety and beauty of its scenery. The Housatonic, in portions placid, in others wild and rapid, winding along the deflecting barrier of the Hoosac Hills, is the most beautiful river of the state, despite the mercantile use of its water-power. The Merrimac, the second stream of the state in volume, runs in a charming valley through the extreme north-east corner, and affords immensely valuable water-power at Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill.

South of Cohasset the shore is sandy, with a few isolated rocky ledges and boulders. About Boston, and to the north of it, the shore is rocky and picturesque. Cape Cod, like a human arm doubled at the elbow, 40 m. from shoulder to elbow and 30 from elbow to hand, is nowhere more than a few miles broad. It is a sandy ridge, dotted with summer resorts and cottages. Cape Ann has a rugged interior and a ragged, rocky coast. It, too, is a summer recreation ground, with much beautiful scenery. Boston Harbor (originally known as Massachusetts Bay, a name which now has a much broader signification) is the finest roadstead on the coast. The extreme hook of the Cape Cod Peninsula forms Provincetown Harbor, which is an excellent and capacious port of refuge for vessels approaching Boston. Salem Harbor is the most considerable other haven on Massachusetts Bay; on Buzzard’s Bay New Bedford has a good harbour, and on the Atlantic coast are the excellent harbours of Gloucester and Marblehead, both frequented by summer residents. Gloucester has the largest fishery interests of any place in the country, and is one of the chief fishing ports of the world. Buzzard’s Bay is also a popular yachting ground, and all about its shores are towns of summer residence. Wood’s Hole is a station of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, and a marine biological laboratory is there.

The principal islands lie off the south coast. The largest is Martha’s Vineyard, about 20 m. long, with an extreme breadth of about 9½ m. It has in Vineyard Haven (Holmes’s Hole) a spacious harbour, much frequented by wind-bound vessels seeking a passage round Cape Cod. The island is covered with stunted trees. Its population was formerly dependent wholly upon the sea, but its climate has made it a popular summer resort, Oak Bluffs being one of the chief resorts of the Atlantic coast. Farther east, Nantucket, a smaller island of triangular shape, is likewise the home of a seafaring folk who still retain in some degree primitive habits, though summer visitors are more and more affecting its life.

Flora and Fauna.—Massachusetts lies entirely in the humid area of the Transition life-zone, with the exception of the extreme north-western corner of the state, which lies in the Boreal zone. Thus the original native trees and plants were those common to New England and northern New York. The presence of a dense population has driven out some, and brought in others, including some noxious weeds. The larger wild animals have disappeared, excepting an occasional black bear or deer. Of the smaller fur-bearing animals, the beaver was long ago exterminated, the otter is seen very rarely, and the mink only in the most isolated districts; but foxes, skunks, weasels, musk-rats, rabbits, and grey and red squirrels are not uncommon. Copperhead snakes and rattlesnakes arc occasionally seen, and there are several species of harmless serpents. Of game birds the most characteristic is the partridge (ruffed grouse), exclusively a woodland bird; the Wilson’s snipe and the woodcock are not uncommon in favourable localities, and several species of ducks are found especially in the bays and marshes near the coast during the seasons of migration. A stray eagle is sometimes seen. Very interesting to ornithologists are the few heath hens, the eastern representative of the prairie hen (pinnated grouse), which are found on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, and are the sole survivors in the eastern states of one of the finest of American game birds, now practically exterminated even on the western plains. There are many insectivorous birds; among the song birds are the hermit thrush, the wood thrush, the Wilson’s thrush, the brown thrasher, the bobolink, the catbird, the oven bird, the house wren, the song sparrow, the fox sparrow, the vesper sparrow, the white-throated sparrow (Peabody bird), the gold-finch and the robin. Brook trout are found, especially in the streams in the western part of the state, and bass, pickerel, perch and smaller fish occur in the rivers and other inland waters. Fish are so abundant on the coast that the cod is sometimes used as an emblem of the state; thus a figure of one hangs in the representatives’ chamber at the State House. The artificial propagation and preservation of salmon and other edible fresh-water fish have been carried on successfully under the supervision of a state commission. The commonwealth has expended large sums since 1890 in a vain attempt to exterminate the gipsy moth (Ocneria, or more exactlyPorthetria, dispar), accidentally allowed to escape in 1869 by a French naturalist.

Climate.—The climate is trying, showing great extremes of temperature (20° F. below zero to 100° above) and marked local variations. The south-eastern coast and islands are mildest. The mean averagetemperature of Boston is 48° F. In the interior it is slightly lower. The mean summer temperature generally over the state is about 70° F. Changes are often sudden, and the passage from winter to summer is through a rapid spring. The ocean tempers the climate considerably on the seaboard. Boston Harbor has been frozen over in the past, but steamtugs plying constantly now prevent the occurrence of such obstruction. In the elevated region in the west the winters are decidedly severe, and the springs and summers often late and cold. Williamstown has a winter mean of about 23° F. The yearly precipitation is about 39 to 45 in., decreasing inland, and is evenly distributed throughout the year. Fogs are common on the coast, and east wind drizzles; the north-east winds being the weather bane of spring and late autumn. In the summer and the autumn the weather is commonly fine, and often most beautiful; and especially in the Berkshires a cool, pure and elastic atmosphere prevails, relatively dry, and altogether delightful.

Agriculture.—The soil, except in some of the valleys, is not naturally fertile; and sandy wastes are common in the south-east parts. High cultivation, however, has produced valuable market-gardens about Boston and the larger towns; and industry has made tillage remunerative in most other parts. The gross value of agricultural products is not great compared with that of other industries, but they are of great importance in the economy of the state. The total value of farm property in 1900 was $182,646,704, including livestock valued at $15,798,464. Of the increase in the total value of farm property between 1850 and 1900 more than half was in the decade 1890-1900; this increase being due partly to the rising value of suburban realty, but also to a development of intensive farming that has been very marked since 1880. The total value of farm products in 1899 was $42,298,274 (expenditure for fertilizers $1,320,600); crops representing 54.7 and animal products 45.3% of this total. The leading crops and their percentages of the total crop value were hay and forage (39.1%), vegetables (23.9%), fruits and nuts (11.7%), forest products (8.4%), and flowers and plants (7.1%). Of the animal products 67.3% were dairy products, and 20.8% poultry and eggs. Cereals3have been for many years declining, although Indian corn is a valuable subsidiary to the dairy interest, which is the most thriving farm industry. The value of farms on which dairying was the chief source of income in 1900 was 46% of the total farm value of the state; the corresponding percentages for livestock, vegetables, hay and grain, flowers and plants, fruit and tobacco, being respectively 14.6, 10.2, 8.0, 4.2, 3.2, and 1.8%. The shrinkage of cereal crops has been mainly responsible for the idea that Massachusetts is agriculturally decadent. Parallel to this shrinkage was the decrease in ranging sheep (82.0% from 1850-1900; 34.2% from 1890-1900), and cattle, once numerous in the hill counties of the west, and in the Connecticut Valley; Boston, then ranking after London as the second wool market of the world, and being at one time the chief packing centre of the country. Dairy cows increased, however, from 1850 to 1900 by 41.9% (1890-1900, 7.3%). The amount of improved farmland decreased in the same period 39.4%, decreasing even more since 1880 than earlier, and amounting in 1900 to no more than 25.1% of the area of the state; but this decrease has been compensated by increased value of products, especially since the beginning of intensive agriculture. An unusual density of urban settlement, furnishing excellent home markets and transportation facilities, are the main props of this new interest. Worcester and Middlesex counties are agriculturally foremost. Tobacco, which has been cultivated since colonial times, especially since the Civil War, is grown exclusively in the Connecticut Valley or on its borders. In the swamps and bogs of the south-east coast cranberry culture is practised, this district producing in 1900 three-fifths of the entire yield of the United States. “Abandoned farms” (aggregating, in 1890, 3.4% of the total farm area, and 6.85% in Hampshire county) are common, especially in the west and south-east.

Mines and Mining.—Granite is the chief mineral, and granite quarrying is the principal mineral industry of the state. In 1900 the value of manufactures based primarily upon the products of mines and quarries was $196,930,979, or 19% of the state’s total manufactured product. In 1906 Massachusetts led all states in the value of its granite output, but in 1907 and 1908 it was second to Vermont. The value of the product (including a small output of igneous rocks) was in 1903, $2,351,027; 1904, $2,554,748; 1905, $2,251,319; 1906, $3,327,416; 1907, $2,328,777; 1908, $2,027,463.

Granite boulders were used for construction in Massachusetts as early as 1650. Systematic quarrying of siliceous crystalline rocks in New England began at Quincy in about 1820. The Gloucester quarries, opened in 1824, were probably the next to be worked regularly. The principal granite quarries are in Milford, (Worcester county), Quincy and Milton (Norfolk county), Rockport (Essex county) and Becket (Berkshire county). Of the fourteen quarries of “Milford granite,” twelve are in the township of that name, and two in Hopkinton township, Middlesex county. B. K. Emerson and J. H. Perry classify this granite as post-Cambrian. They describe it4as “a compact, massive rock, somewhat above medium grain, and of light colour. The light flesh colour of the feldspar, and the blue of the quartz give it in some places a slight pinkish tint, and it is now much used as a building-stone under the name of ‘pink granite.’”

The Quincy granite district lies around the north-east end of the Blue Hill region, about 11 m. south of Boston. For monumental purposes this granite is classified as “medium,” “dark,” and “extra dark.” Quincy granite takes a very high polish, owing to the absence of mica and to the coarser cleavage of its hornblende and augite. The lightest of the monumental stone quarried at Quincy is called gold-leaf; it is bluish-green gray, speckled with black and light yellow brown. Another variety has small, rather widely separated cherry-red dots.

The Rockport granite is found along or near the seashore, between Rockport and Bay View, and within about three-quarters of a mile of Cape Ann. The granite is of two kinds, known commercially as “grey granite” and “green granite.” Both varieties are hard and take a very high polish.

The Becker granite (known as “Chester dark” and “Chester light”) is a muscovite-biotite granite varying from medium grey to medium bluish grey colour, and fine in texture. It is used principally for monuments.

In 1907 Massachusetts ranked sixth among the states in the value of its trap rock product ($432,604), and eighth in sandstone ($243,328). The value of the marble produced in the same year was $212,438, the state ranking fifth in the value of the total product and fourth in building-marble. Other minerals are emery, limestone and quartz. The state ranked fifth in 1906 in the total value of stone quarried ($4,333,616), and eighth in 1908 ($2,955,195). The output of lime in 1908 was 107,813 tons, valued at $566,022. Second in value to the various stones were the clay products of the state, which were valued in 1906 at $2,172,733 (of which $1,415,864 was the value of common brick) and in 1908 at $1,647,362 (of which $950,921 was the value of common brick). There are many mineral springs in the state, more than half being in Essex and Middlesex counties. The total amount of mineral waters sold in 1908 was valued at $227,907. In that year the total value of the minerals and mining products of the state was $5,925,949. Gold has been found in small quantities in Middlesex, Norfolk and Plymouth counties.

Manufactures.—Though only four states of the Union are smaller, only three exceeded Massachusetts in 1905 in the value of manufactured products (six exceeding it in population); and this despite very scant native resources of raw materials and a very limited home market. Historical priority of development, exceptionally extensive and well utilized water-power, and good transportation facilities are largely responsible for the exceptional rank of Massachusetts as a manufacturing state. Vast water-power is developed on the Merrimac at Lawrence and Lowell, and on the Connecticut at South Hadley, and to a less extent at scores of other cities on many streams and artificial ponds; many of the machines that have revolutionized industrial conditions since the beginning of the factory system have been invented by Massachusetts men; and the state contains various technical schools of great importance. In 1900 the value of manufactures was $1,035,198,989, an increase from 1890 of 16.6%; that from 1880 to 1890 having been 40.7%. In textiles—cottons, worsteds, woollens and carpets—in boots and shoes, in rubber foot-wear, in fine writing paper, and in other minor products, it is the leading state of the country. The textile industries (the making of carpets and rugs, cotton goods, cotton smallwares, dyeing and finishing textiles, felt goods, felt hats, hosiery and knit goods, shoddy, silk and silk goods, woollen goods, and worsted goods), employed 32.5% of all manufacturing wage earners in 1905, and their product ($271,369,816) was 24.1% of the total, and of this nearly one-half ($129,171,449) was in cotton goods, being 28.9% of the total output of the country, as compared with 11% for South Carolina, the nearest competitor of Massachusetts. There is a steadily increasing product of fine grade fabrics. The output of worsted goods in 1905 ($51,973,944) was more than three-tenths that of the entire country, Rhode Island being second with $44,477,596; in Massachusetts the increase in the value of this product was 28.2% between 1900 and 1905. The value of woollen goods in 1905 ($44,653,940) was more than three-tenths of the entire product for the country; and it was 44.6% more than that of 1900. The value of boots and shoes and cut stock in 1905 was $173,612,660, being 23% greater than in 1900; the value of boots and shoes in 1905 ($144,291,426) was 45.1% of the country’s output, that of New York, the second state, being only 10.7%. In this industry, as in the manufacture of cotton goods, Massachusetts has long been without serious rivalry; Brockton, Lynn,Haverhill, Marlboro and Boston, in the order named, being the principal centres. The third industry in 1905 was that of foundry and machine-shop products ($58,508,793), of which Boston and Worcester are the principal centres. Lesser interests, in the order of importance, with the product value of each in 1905, were: rubber goods ($53,133,020), tanned, curried and finished leather ($33,352,999), in the manufacture of which Massachusetts ranked second among the states; paper and wood pulp5($32,012,247), in the production of which the state ranked second among the states of the Union; slaughtering and meat packing ($30,253,838); printing and publishing ($33,900,748, of which $21,020,237 was the value of newspapers and periodicals); clothing ($21,724,056); electrical machinery, apparatus and supplies ($15,882,216); lumber ($12,636,329); iron and steel, steel works and rolling-mills products ($11,947,731; less than in 1900); cordage and twine ($11,173,521), in the manufacture of which Massachusetts was second only to New York; furniture ($11,092,581); malt liquors ($11,080,944); jewelry ($10,073,595), Massachusetts ranking second to Rhode Island; confectionery ($9,317,996), in which Massachusetts was third among the states.

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Many of these industries have a history going back far into colonial times, some even dating from the first half of the 17th century. Textile products were really varied and of considerable importance before 1700. The policy of the British government towards such industries in the colonial period was in general repressive. The non-importation sentiment preceding the War of Independence fostered home manufactures considerably, and the Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts before the war of 1812, as well as that war itself (despite the subsequent glut of British goods) had a much greater effect; for they mark the introduction of the factory system, which by 1830 was firmly established in the textile industry and was rapidly transforming other industries. Improvements were introduced much more slowly than in England, the cost of cotton machinery as late as 1826 being 50-60% greater in America. The first successful power loom in America was set up at Waltham in 1814. Carding, roving and spinning machines were constructed at Bridgewater in 1786. The first cotton mill had been established in Beverly in 1788, and the first real woollen factory at Byfield in 1794. Woolcard machinery destined to revolutionize the industry was devised by Amos Whittemore (1759-1828) in 1797; spinning jennies were in operation under water-power before 1815. Carpet-weaving was begun at Worcester in 1804. “Not a yard of fancy wool fabric had ever been woven by the power-loom in any country till done by William Crompton at the Middlesex Mills, Lowell, in 1840” (Samuel Lawrence).6The introduction of the remarkably complete machinery of the shoe industry was practically complete by 1865, this being the last of the great industries to come under the full dominance of machinery. At Pittsfield and at Dalton is centred the manufacture of fine writing papers, including that of paper used by the national government for bonds and paper money. Four-fifths of all loft-dried paper produced in the country from 1860-1897 was made within 15 m. of Springfield; Holyoke and South Hadley being the greatest producers. Vulcanized rubber is a Massachusetts invention. Most of the imitation jewelry of the United States is produced at Attleboro and North Attleboro, and in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1905 Boston produced 16.4% of all the manufactures of the state, and Lynn, the second city, which had been fifth in 1900, 4.9%. Some industries which have since become dead or of relatively slight magnitude were once of much greater significance, economically or socially: such as the rum-distilling connected with the colonial slave trade, and various interests concerned with shipbuilding and navigation. The packing of pork and beef formerly centred in Boston; but, while the volume of this business has not diminished, it has been greatly exceeded in the west. For many years Massachusetts controlled a vast lumber trade, drawing upon the forests of Maine, but the growth of the west changed the old channels of trade, and Boston carpenters came to make use of western timber. It was between 1840 and 1850 that the cotton manufactures of Massachusetts began to assume large proportions; and about the same time the manufacture of boots and shoes centred there. Medford ships began to be famous shortly after the beginning of the 19th century, and by 1845 that town employed one quarter of all the shipwrights in the state.

Fishing is an important industry. Drift whales were utilized in the earliest years of the colony, and shore boating for the baleen (or “right”) whale—rich in bone and in blubber yielding common oil—was an industry already regulated by various towns before 1650; but the pursuit of the sperm whale did not begin until about 1713. The former industry had died out before the War of Independence; the latter is not yet quite extinct. Nantucket and New Bedford were the centres of the whaling trade, which, for the energy and skill required and the length (three to five years when sailing vessels were employed) of the ever-widening voyages which finally took the fishermen into every quarter of the globe, contributes the most romantic chapters in the history of American commerce. At one time it gave occupation to a thousand ships, but the introduction of petroleum gradually diminished this resource of the lesser ports. The Newfoundland Bank fisheries were of greater economic importance and are still very important. Gloucester is the chief centre of the trade. The value of fishery products in 1895 was $5,703,143, and in 1905 $7,025,249; and 15,694 persons were engaged in the fisheries. Though cod is much the most important fish (in 1905 fresh cod were valued at $991,679, and salted cod at $696,928), haddock (fresh, $1,051,910; salted, $17,194), mackerel (value in 1905, including horse mackerel, $970,876), herring (fresh, $266,699; salted, $114,997), pollock ($267,927), hake ($258,438), halibut ($218,232), and many other varieties are taken in great quantities. The shell fisheries are less important than those of Maine.

Commerce.—Already by 1660 New England products were an “important element in the commerce and industries of the mother country” (Weeden). Codfish was perhaps the truest basis of her commerce, which soon came to include the West Indies, Africa and southern Europe. Of fundamental importance was the trade with the French West Indies, licit and illicit, particularly after the Peace of Utrecht (1713). Provisions taken to Newfoundland, poor fish to the West Indies, molasses to New England, rum to Africa and good cod to France and Spain, were the commonest ventures of foreign trade. The English Navigation Acts were generally evaded, and were economically of little effect; politically they were of great importance in Massachusetts as a force that worked for independence. Privateering, piracy and slave-trading—which though of less extent than in Rhode Island became early of importance, and declined but little before the American War of Independence—give colour to the history of colonial trade.

Trade with China and India from Salem was begun in 1785 (first voyage from New York, 1784), and was first controlled there, and afterwards in Boston till the trade was lost to New York. The Boston trade to the Canadian north-west coast was begun in 1788. The first regular steamship line from Boston to other American Atlantic ports was established in 1824. In commercial relations the chief port of Massachusetts attained its greatest importance about 1840, when it was selected as the American terminus of the first steamship line (Cunard) connecting Great Britain with the United States; but Boston lost the commercial prestige then won by the failure of the state to promote railway communication with the west, so as to equal the development effected by other cities. The decline of commerce, however, had already begun, manufacturing supplanting it in importance; and this decline was rapid by 1850. From 1840 to 1860 Massachusetts-built ships competed successfully in the carrying trade of the world. Before 1840 a ship of 500 tons was a large ship, but after the discovery of gold in California the size of vessels increased rapidly and their lines were more and more adapted to speed. The limit of size was reached in an immense clipper of 4555 tons, and the greatest speed was attained in a passage from San Francisco to Boston in seventy-five days, and from San Francisco to Cork in ninety-three days. The development of steam navigation for the carrying of large cargoes has driven this fleet from the sea. Only a small part of the exports and imports of Massachusetts is now carried in American bottoms.7The first grain elevator built in Boston, and one of the first in the world, was erected in 1843, when Massachusetts sent Indian corn to Ireland. When the Civil War and steam navigation put an end to the supremacy of Massachusetts wooden sailing ships, much of the capital which had been employed in navigation was turned into developing railway facilities and coasting steamship lines. In 1872 the great fire in Boston made large drains upon the capital of the state, and several years of depression followed. But in 1907 Boston was the second port of the United States in the magnitude of its foreign commerce. In that year the value of imports at the Boston-Charlestown customs district was $123,411,168, and the value of exports was $104,610,908; for 1909 the corresponding figures were $127,025,654 and $72,936,869. Other ports of entry in the state in 1909 were Newburyport, Gloucester, Salem, Marblehead, Plymouth, Barnstable, Nantucket, Edgartown, New Bedford and Fall River. A protective tariff was imposed in early colonial times and protection was generally approved in the state until toward the close of the 19th century, when a strong demand became apparent for reciprocity with Canada and for tariff reductions on the raw materials (notably hides) of Massachusetts manufactures.

At the end of 1908 the length of railway lines within the state was 2,109.33 miles. The Hoosac Tunnel, 5¾ m. long, pierces the Hoosac Mountain in the north-west corner of the state, affording a communication with western lines. It cost about $20,000,000, the state lending its credit, and was built between 1855 and 1874. The inter-urban electric railways are of very great importance in the state; in 1908 the total mileage of street and inter-urban electricrailways was 2841.59 m. (2233.85 m. being first main track). The Cape Cod canal, 12 m. long, from Sandwich on Barnstable Bay to Buzzard’s Bay, was begun in June 1909, with a view to shortening the distance by water from Boston to New York and eliminating the danger of the voyage round Cape Cod.

Population.—The population of the state in 1910 was 3,366,416, the increases in successive decades after 1790 being respectively 11.6, 11.6, 11.9, 16.6, 20.9, 34.8, 23.8, 18.4, 22.4, 25.6, 25.3 and 20%.8With the exception of Rhode Island, it is the most densely populated state in the Union, the average number to the square mile in 1900 being 349 (in 1910, 418.8), and the urban population,i.e.the population of places having above 8000 or more inhabitants, being 69.9% in 1890 and in 1900 76.0% of the total population (in places above 2500, 91.5%; in places above 25,000, 58.3%). The female population is greater (and has been since 1765, at least) than the male, the percentage being in 1900 greater than in any other state of the Union (51.3%; District of Columbia, owing to clerks in government service 52.6%). In 1900 less than 1.3% of the population was coloured; 30.2% were foreign-born (this element having almost continuously risen from 16.49% in 1855), and 62.3% of all inhabitants and 46.5% of those native-born had one or both parents of foreign birth. Ireland contributed the largest proportion of the foreign-born (29.5%), although since 1875 the proportion of Irish in the total population has considerably fallen. After the Irish the leading foreign elements are Canadian English (18.7%), Canadian French (15.8%) and English (9.7%), these four constituting three-fourths of the foreign population. Since 1885 the natives of southern Italy have greatly increased in number. Of the increase in total population from 1856-1895 only a third could be attributed to the excess of births over deaths; two-thirds being due to immigration from other states or from abroad. Boston is the second immigrant port of the country. A large part of the transatlantic immigrants pass speedily to permanent homes in the west, but by far the greater part of the Canadian influx remains.

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