and between Sudbury and Wayland, where it is sometimes called
Sudbury River, it enters Concord at the south part of the town,
and after receiving the North or Assabeth River, which has its
source a little farther to the north and west, goes out at the
northeast angle, and flowing between Bedford and Carlisle, and
through Billerica, empties into the Merrimack at Lowell. In
Concord it is, in summer, from four to fifteen feet deep, and
from one hundred to three hundred feet wide, but in the spring
freshets, when it overflows its banks, it is in some places
nearly a mile wide. Between Sudbury and Wayland the meadows
acquire their greatest breadth, and when covered with water, they
form a handsome chain of shallow vernal lakes, resorted to by
numerous gulls and ducks. Just above Sherman's Bridge, between
these towns, is the largest expanse, and when the wind blows
freshly in a raw March day, heaving up the surface into dark and
sober billows or regular swells, skirted as it is in the distance
with alder-swamps and smoke-like maples, it looks like a smaller
Lake Huron, and is very pleasant and exciting for a landsman to
row or sail over. The farm-houses along the Sudbury shore, which
rises gently to a considerable height, command fine water
prospects at this season. The shore is more flat on the Wayland
side, and this town is the greatest loser by the flood. Its
farmers tell me that thousands of acres are flooded now, since
the dams have been erected, where they remember to have seen the
white honeysuckle or clover growing once, and they could go dry
with shoes only in summer. Now there is nothing but blue-joint
and sedge and cut-grass there, standing in water all the year
round. For a long time, they made the most of the driest season
to get their hay, working sometimes till nine o'clock at night,
sedulously paring with their scythes in the twilight round the