Hummock

“ The point of contact of the southern with the northern hummock, like the northern hummock with the main-land, is also very narrow; and to its narrowness is added another feature: it is so low, or in more technical language it is so nearly on a level with the high-water mark, that when there happens to be a strong wind from either the northeast or the southeast, the waters of the bay, on the incoming tide, will rush with great force over the slight barrier and mingle with the waters of the cove, making an island, for the time, of the larger and more southern hummock. ”

“ Unless a hummock interrupts the view, the eye may sometimes roam for half a mile in every direction over a perfectly level plain, interspersed with occasional trees whose tufted heads throw waving shadows upon the bright green beds of saw-palmetto that cover most of the ground beneath. Were it not for the half-wild cattle that range at will through the country, the palmetto would probably usurp every inch of ground ”

“ The snow is driven like sand upon a level beach, lifted up in long curve lines, and then obscuring the atmosphere with a white darkness. The wind, too, is howling in a shrill minor, singing across the hummock ridges. ”

“ The strong floe of ice-table under ice-table, and hummock upon hummock, makes our position one of nearly complete solidity. We are glued up in ice; and to liberate us, some fearful disruption must take place. Twenty-five feet of solid ice is no feeble matrix, for a brig drawing but ten. Yet the water is wider, and still widening around us; so that now we hold on—that is, our floe holds on, to the great mass to the north of us, like a little peninsular cape.
“To the south every thing is in drifting motion—water, sludge, frost-smoke—but no seals. ”

“ A Florida Palmetto Hummock, or "Hammock"
development there is only the terminal bud to consider. The young palm of this species emerges from the ground in full strength, one cluster of leaves arched every way, making a sphere about ten or twelve feet in diameter. The outside lower leaves gradually become yellow, wither, and break off, the petiole snapping squarely across, a few inches from the stem. New leaves develop with wonderful rapidity. They stand erect at first, but gradually arch outward as they expand their blades and lengthen their petioles. ”

“ I have penetrated to those meadows on the morning of many a first spring day, jumping from hummock to hummock, from willow root to willow root, when the wild river valley and the woods were bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead, if they had been slumbering in their graves, as some suppose. ”

“ Steadily they advanced, crouching close beneath the grass-heads, hiding behind the numberless hummocks which rose in their front at intervals, behind the tall mysterious palms whose fan-like leaves kept up an unceasing rustle, and waving as the breeze swayed them up and down, and blew them with a startling noise against the tall trunks. ”

“ He mounts a hummock, slashes the grass and a part of the turf from the hummocks around him, mounts the decapitated hummocks and deftly shaves the sides and pares the hollows. There are no stones in the mowing lands; scarcity of hay, the necessity for getting all the short grass during the thousand years of mowing has removed every trace of lava fragments. Whenever we arrived at a farm I worked an hour or more with the haymakers in order to get acquainted with the people and study their methods of work. ”

“ The dogs climb the hummocks with the facility of the chamois mounting the Alpine crags. One advantage they possess is, that they are not so heavy as the men and do not so readily break through the crusted snow; and then, the sledges being smaller, are more easily managed. We have reached a most formidable ridge of hummocks which we were too much exhausted to scale; and have camped in a sort of cave made by the crowding over of some ice-tables, thus saving the labor of making a burrow ”

“ It is frequently produced by pressure, where one piece is squeezed upon another, often set upon its edge, and in that position cemented by the frost. Hummocks are likewise formed by pieces of ice mutually crushing each other, the wreck being heaped upon one or both of them. To hummocks, principally, the ice is indebted for its variety of fanciful shapes and its picturesque appearance. They occur in great numbers in heavy packs, on the edges, and occasionally in the middle of fields and floes, where they often attain the height of thirty feet and upwards. ”

“ Its shores are flat and sandy, but here and there hummocks rise abruptly to the height of one hundred feet, resembling the downs on the Norfolk coast. The sandy hummocks are bound together by the creeping fibrous roots of a species of grass, named Elymus mollis; and many of them are covered by a coat of black vegetable mould. Ruins of Esquimaux houses, that appeared to have been deserted for many years, were scattered along the borders of the cove, and much drift-timber lay on the low grounds. ”

“ One of the many hummocks in the field was hung about with twinkling lights, green and pale and golden, and as they drew near they could see that these were countless glowwormy lanterns, hung artfully from the grass blades. ”

“ Exceptionally it has been found on the top of a hummock, but as a rule should be looked for within a few hundred yards of the feeding ground, sometimes quite exposed but difficult to see as the sitting bird exactly resembles in color the grey stones lying about and generally sits till almost trodden on. In the Inverness country the birds nest close to a mark, just as the Sutherland birds do, but here instead of a grey boulder it is usually a bit of bleached and dead pine, of which thousands of fragments lie scattered about. ”

“ In middle New England the ground-moraine is developed into the lenticular hill—an oblong rounded hummock, sometimes two hundred feet high, mostly composed of lower till, with a trend corresponding to the direction of the ice-current in the neighborhood, varying from nearly southeast near Newburyport to south 10° west in the Connecticut Valley. ”

“ When we came to spots where the forest was too thick to see far ahead, we sent out scouts; but I observed that few of the men were willing to get out of hearing of the main body. At last we found ourselves in another hummock: a dense jungle of tall cabbage-palms, oaks, hickory and cotton-trees, with an undergrowth of shrubs such as are to be found only in carefully-cultivated gardens in England—hydrangeas, azaleas, lobelias, and shrubs and creepers of varied colours and gorgeous hues ”

“ Thus, reader, perhaps every known hummock in the Floridas is annually attacked, and so often does it happen that the white rot or some other disease has deteriorated the quality of the timber, that the woods may be seen strewn with trunks that have been found worthless, so that every year these valuable oaks are becoming scarcer. ”

“ It only remains for me to say, that the distance between the cabin and the Live-oak hummock to which the woodsman was bound, scarcely exceeded 8 miles, while the part of the river at which he was found, was 38 miles from his house. Calculating his daily wanderings at 10 miles, we may believe that they amounted in all to 400. He must, therefore, have rambled in a circuitous direction, which people generally do in such circumstances. Nothing but the great strength of his constitution, and the merciful aid of his Maker, could have supported him for so long a time. ”

“ The beach here described is the surest guide to those who {240} are desirous of finding the harbour of Chequetan, for five miles to the westward of the extremity of this beach there appears a hummock, which at first makes like an island, and is in shape not very unlike the hill of Petaplan, hereafter mentioned, though much smaller. Three miles to the westward of this hummock is a white rock near the shore which cannot easily be passed by unobserved. It is about two cables'-length from the land, and lies in a large bay, about nine leagues over. ”

“ Those men who do not go off on the deer hunt keep one or more seal nets set all winter, either in this way or in the third method, which can be practiced only after the daylight has come back, when the ice is thick. At this season there are frequently to be found among the hummocks what the natives call i ́glus, dome-shaped snow houses about 6 feet in diameter and 2 or 3 feet high, with a smooth round hole in the top, and communicating with the water. ”

“ In some cases the vegetation has spread and grown over the edges of the terraces, and by further growth hummocks have been formed.
The formation of hummocky ground on a morainic hillside appears to be somewhat as follows:—
If conditions, such as snow-line, wind, etc. (on a bare hillside of sandy and stony ground) permit, isolated plants begin to appear, and collect soil around them by their prostrate habit of growth and with their roots ”

“ It was raised about four inches above the sand ; only one old bird was seen, it having been frightened off the nest. On July 7 Mr. Sandsbury and I saw one adult bird.
Symphemia semipalmata. — Nantucket. On May 2, 1895, Mr. Charles E. Snow informed me he saw five Willets at the Hummock Pond.
Totanus solitarius. — In the vicinity of the Hummock Pond, more Solitary Sandpipers have been noted this season than for a number of years. On Aug. 29, 1895, one female was taken ; on Sept. 9, three more; Sept. 10, another; on Sept. 29. ”

“ Parry says that snow-shoes would not have been of the least service, as the surface was so irregular that the men would have been thrown down at every other step. Among the hummocks noted at this time were smooth, regular cones of ice, “resembling in shape the aromatic pastiles sold by chemists; this roundness and regularity of form indicate age, all the more recent ones being sharp and angular.” ”

“ The vast masses of hummocks, thirty to fifty feet high, and sometimes a quarter of a mile wide, which occur at frequent intervals and divide the ancient floes, are evidence of very violent encounters between the floes; and mud found on the ice some miles from the shore is also a proof of movement. The ice traversed by Captain Markham consisted of ancient floes of small extent and very uneven surface, separated by lofty ranges of rugged hummocks, and there were occasionally narrow streams of this year's ice, that is about five feet four inches thick, connecting the floes. ”

“ It was nearly two in the afternoon when they cleared the crest of the divide and began dropping down a feeder of Squaw Creek. Earlier in the winter some moose-hunter had made a trail up the canyon—that is, in going up and down he had stepped always in his previous tracks. As a result, in the midst of soft snow, and veiled under later snow falls, was a line of irregular hummocks. If one's foot missed a hummock, he plunged down through unpacked snow and usually to a fall. Also, the moose-hunter had been an exceptionally long-legged individual. ”

“ We will have some advantage if we can beat them to the protection of the base of that hummock."
As rapidly as possible they started forward. Lying out flat, they would draw their feet upward and toward them, rising slightly and going forward upon their arms. ”

“ Nothing loth, and gayly, Flor plunged after.
The hummocks on which they went were light, spongy masses of greenery. Their footprints filled at once behind them with clear dark water; there were glistening little pools everywhere about them; the ground was so covered with mats of brilliant blossoms that what appeared solid for the foot was oftenest the most treacherous place of all; and at last they stayed to take breath, planting themselves on the trunk of a fallen tree so twisted and twined with variegated vines and flowers, and deadly, damp fungi, that it was like some gorgeous daïs-seat. ”

“ The drier places in these muskegs are covered with a growth of bushes or clumps of trees, gathered together on hummocks slightly elevated above the general level. A rich growth of grass and sedge covers the lower and wetter places, which often assume all the features of a peat bog, with a thick growth of sphagnum mosses, while the ground trembles, for many yards about, under the tread of men and horses. ”

“ S. cæspitosa, Empetrum, Salix herbacea, and other plants usually found on the hummocks. True hummocks were, however, rare.
Near our camp and before the Svatá was reached we came to the end of the lava and crossed a sandy tract, and the usual change in the flora was at once noticeable; large clumps of willows bound the sand together, around which the soil collected, forming mounds, and patches of Armeria, Arabia petræa, Silene, and Arenaria were scattered about. In some places the willows were killed by having been buried in the blown sand. ”

“ All the guests at Geysir, satisfied with having seen the eruptions, were bent upon improving the opportunity to visit the famous falls. The section of bog, to which we have referred, is on an upland slope and it is filled with ruts, hummocks and moss sponges. The hummocks are crowned with several species of Juncus, the cotton-grass points out the moss sponges and the slimy algae locate the wettest spaces. The older ponies with eyes and nose alert always avoid the sloughs. If there is evidence of the recent passage of a pony, another will confidently follow. ”

“ Occasionally the hummocks are not round or isolated, but grow in crescent form or almost complete rings, sometimes there is no top growth — however it grows it is most accursed vegetation to walk through, both for men and camels. Whatever form it takes it seems to be so arranged that it cannot be stepped over or circumvented — one must in consequence walk through it and be pricked, unpleasantly. Camels and horses suffer rather severely sometimes, the constant pricking causing sores on their legs. ”