Quote Blog

"The sideways blowing snow swept me off of my feet and I plunged down the chute."

In every book that I have read this year pertaining to action sports, the weather has determined many fates for either events, activities and in some cases peoples lives. In the quote above, Norm finds himself in a very sticky situation as he is using a horizontal stick to keep him from riding down this tall frozen waterfall during his descent back to civilization after taking part in a deadly plane crash. He watched his father pass away in front of him, his step mom the same, and the pilot be ejected from the cockpit during impact and not surviving the blow. Its just 10 year old Norm out there all by himself. 4,000 feet up from any other sign of life. If that isnt bad enough, there is an epic blizzard that has erupted in the mountains completely unexpectingly. Without notice, this ominous storm made its way into the Rocky Mountains after gaining wind over the plains to the west. The plane was driven off course by the winds and instead of flying through this section of plains leading from one side of the rockies to the other, it veered off into the mountains that formed a barrier to this plain. The mountains, being so tall, were too much for the plane to overcome.

It is situations like these that reinforce my thoughts about studying weather. Because this storm was completely unexpected and it turned out to be so deadly, there should have been some way of finding out about its path. I beleive that the technology that this world is able to come out with is completely capapble of doing a better job. Yes, this was back in the early 90's and things have come along a little more but us humans can do a better job of this. We're capable. I think the fault in the observatory system is simply not enough observatories. I think if some organization came togeather and engineered some sort of mini module that gathered data such as wind speed, wind direction, pressure etc... and scattered them around the country our knowledge on whats going on above us would be substantially more valid.

Midterm

It is new news to most that the local area in which we live in was once in contribution to America's mining industry. There are several sites around Essex County where anyone willing to go for an off trail hike through the woods can get to and witness this part of our local history. From personal experience, these areas are tricky to find as the local mining trend occurred around the later end of the 1800s. Because of this, the areas that were mined are now very overgrown.

I visited a few mining sites around the area to get a look at these places myself as an action piece for this project. The first site i visited was the Chipman Silver mine in Newbury, Ma. The old mine ruins are located about a half mile into the woods behind the Scotland Hights subdivision. I could tell i was getting closer to the main site when i began to see random pipes sticking out of the ground in places and rock shavings strewn about. I kept going in the right direction and ended up in a 20by20 yard pit of shail shavings and in the middle a hole with water filled in until about 5 feet below the main elevation. I found out that this hole was extremely deep when i took a very long stick that i found and threw in it there vertically. The stick was roughly 10 feet long, and it went all the way under, stayed down for a little and bobbed back up to the surface. Around the rock pit there were a few weathered structures made out of rocks and concrete that I couldn't really fit a purpose into. In some spots I could identify possible foundations that have since been filled with decaying leaves and sticks. The area surrounding the site used to be completely cleared for miles according to the old pictures. It is now in a reasonably dense forest and the youthful trees tell its past of being once a field.

The next mining site i visited was Devils Den in Newbury, Ma. Devils den is now a cave under a rock, it really is not that interesting but still a cool site to visit. It used to be in the middle of a field located in the southern end of the town, but is now immersed in an overgrown area of shrubbery. Devils den was excavated also in the later 1800s and was for purpose of lime stone. There is still some remains of the once precious mineral around but it is tough to find due to an abundance of graffiti. One interesting piece to this place are all of the haunted rumors that were set in place about the area.

Another thing i read about in the book was the plotting of the outlines or boundaries of all of the towns. Each town has several granite posts marking the corners of the towns. To get a first hand look at these myself, I visited one of the corners in West Newbury that i found from a map on Google earth. Surprisingly when I got there, I noticed that the entire area around it was flooded badly. With further searching I found that this was a result of a beaver dam. Not only did this flood the area around the stone, but it also flooded an old road that I found going through what is now a thriving swamp.

The next site i visited was an old dam that once captivated the water coming from Mill Pond flowing into the Indian River. I read in my book that this flooded area was a fish breeding ground for freshwater perch. There were 4 of these fisheries in West Newbury and none currebntly exist. I could not find any pictures of these, but evidence from the dams past was present when i visited the site.

Toward the end of my first book, I read about a thriving hotel on the southern tip of Plum Island. Called the Ipswitch Bluffs Resort, this massive structure stood atop a bluff (shown in the below pictures) facing the bluffs of Ipswitch over the harbor. The building had some sort of relation to Castle Hill and had many famous visitors come for a stay at this luxury resort. The building was destroyed by high winds and caught fire when collapsed, starting a wildfire destroying a solid chunk of the southern part of the island. This was one of the many wildfires on Plum Island. There are no remains of the site.

My last first hand look at the local history was another mining operation. This one however was in Groveland. Although Groveland was no topic to the books that I read, it was still recognized as a large factor in the mining industry to the local area. This was because of a massive quarry. I could not identify what stone was searched for here, but it is evident they were looking for something. About a mile off a main road, this site has a series of 2 rock walls standing about 30 feet high each. This place was mined in the very early 1900s.

fadfds

Chipman Mine in Newbury
It is new news to most that the local area in which we live in was once in contribution to America's mining industry. There are several sites around essex county where anyone willing to go for an off trail hike through the woods can get to and witness this part of our local history. From personal experience, these areas are tricky to find as the local mining trend occured around the later end of the 1800s. Because of this, the areas that were mined are now very overgrown.
I visited a few mining sites around the area to get a look at these places myself as an action piece for this project. The first site i visited was the Chipman Silver mine in Newbury, Ma. The old mine ruins are located about a half mile into the woods behind the Scotland Hights subdivision. I could tell i was getting closer to the main site when i began to see random pipes sticking out of the ground in places and rock shavings strewn about. I kept going in the right direction and ended up in a 20by20 yard pit of shail shavings and in the middle a hole with water filled in untill about 5 feet below the main elevation. I found out that this hole was extremely deep when i took a veryh long stick that i found and threw in it there vertically. The stick was roughly 10 feet long, and it went all the way under, stayed down for a little and bobbed back up to the surface. Around the rock pit there were a few weathered structures made out of rocks and concrete that i couldnt really fit a purpose into. In some spots i could identify possible foundations that have since been filled with decaying leaves and sticks. The area surrounding the site used to be completely cleared for miles according to the old pictures. It is now in a reasonably dense forest and the youthful trees tell its past of being once a field.

Old Records

“ At an adjourned meeting held august 10, 1774, the following report was read, accepted and a copy ordered to be sent to the delegates in congress from the province of Massachusetts ----- To the inhabitants of the Town of Newbury Port in Town meeting assembled nu adjournment from the 3^rd day of this present month, august:

This quote from the book, first an introduction by the author, followed by the introduction to the report in which it introduces, can be found on page 533 in The History of Newburyport. The document was basically a message to the congress of Massachusetts that they were going to cut off all trade for an amount of time not specified. Confusing to me was the reason for this. The unknown author claims that it was to “obtain more speedy and effectual relief”. Their motive behind this plan I guess was the speed and organization of the trading process of Newburyport when compared to similar sized towns. Later in the report, Newburyport’s importance in general trade is explained with the author describing their importance with the trading between Great Britain, French West Indian Islands, along with the distilleries and shipbuilders of the local area. Somehow, I couldn’t grasp why, the document ties in with the town’s involvement in the revolutionary war. Several times I tried to read around it to see how it fit in but I just couldn’t grasp it because everything around it is like documents similar to this one with a brief introduction in the beginning by the author of the book.

There are countless examples of old excerpts similar to this throughout this book. Many of which contain very interesting information about how the town was either developed or stabilized. Reading these documents is extremely difficult as it seems that every author of them has no literary skills higher than that of a present day fourth grader. From run on sentences to subject/predicate agreement (or non-agreement) these old documents are hard to obtain any information from. However, with careful reading and willingness to learn these documents can be very useful in depicting an accurate view on what things were like back then. The constant use of them in this novel is one of the things that keep me reading.

Modern Pricetags

“The work was completed in December 1903, at a cost of three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.”  Pg 375-376 The History of Newburyport

This quote taken from my most recent read The History of Newburyport refers to the old-fashioned cost towards the surrounding towns of the bridge connecting Newburyport and Salisbury. This cash total goes to show how the cost behind general necessities was greatly lower around a hundred years ago than it is today. For example the new bridge connecting Groveland to Haverhill, a little shorter than the one that passes over Newburyport harbor, cost 49.7 million dollars to construct. The cost to build the bridge was divided up between companies, states, counties and towns; with the country paying the largest chunk out of all at 250k. The old bridge was completely removed, pillars and all. This was all part of a plan thought out by the Haverhill & Amesbury Street Railroad Company. Constructed with a drawbridge, iron truss system and fixed pillars this bridge was thought to be one of the more technologically advanced bridges of its time. Although this same bridge does not stand today, the original pillars and channels are still in action with only a few minor repairs from over the years.

Going back to the original quotes purpose, I find it so hard to understand how a project of similar nature could cost close to 150 times more now than it did back then. Is it because of more skilled labor being put into this workplace? Is it because of the cost of higher quality materials that may not be in the same abundance of what they used to be? Going off my knowledge I can’t formulate an honest response to that question as I have not studied the economics behind construction. But what I do know is that the engineering and materials used in order to complete this task are of much higher quality than what they were back then. When a new bridge is built in this present day, it is said that because of the advancements in technology the new bridges last far far longer than the old ones, which really doesn’t surprise me. They say things aren’t built to last anymore? Looks like that doesn’t apply to bridge building! Bridges back then used to be in trouble if the ice got too thick, now, troubles like that are no longer troubles. With fixed pillars (pillars that are dug into the riverbed) the ice, current and wind don’t stand a chance! It’s not the cost of the fixed pillar itself that boosts the modern bridge build price tag up, but it’s what you need to build it. The surrounding area on the riverbed has to be bare in order to dig accurately. The cost of pumping all of that water out and the equipment to keep water from coming in in the first place is what makes this a multimillion dollar endeavor.