Short Trees and Short Timbers
Nantucket, Massachusetts island lies 30 miles off the southern coastline of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1775, Nantucket was the largest whaling Port in the world, and the third largest port in Massachusetts. However, dominance in this most adventurous, dangerous and potentially lucrative of all maritime trades was not supported by an extensive, local, ship building industry. Early Nantucket Forests were unusual and determined the scope of indigenous and colonial wooden ship building on Nantucket Island. Nantucket island has not been home to forests of tall trees for at least 4,000 years. Continual salt spray and the absence of a rich loam soil forced an unusual dwarf morphology on trees such as oak, beech, cedar and pine. Architectural and ship building timbers of large size were not available to the early European and American colonists of Nantucket island nor to the indigenous Wampanoag who made canoes and used offshore waters, rivers and streams to hunt and fish throughout the year.
Read more about this topic: Nantucket Shipbuilding
Famous quotes containing the words short, trees and/or timbers:
“In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For many are the trees of God that grow
In Paradise, and various, yet unknown
To us; in such abundance lies our choice
As leaves a greater store of fruit untouched,
Still hanging incorruptible, till men
Grow up to their provision, and more hands
Help to disburden Nature of her bearth.””
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“The man who is rich in fancy thinks that his wagon is already built; poor fool, he does not know that there are a hundred timbers to a wagon.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)