Exploring Stone Walls: A Field Guide To New England's Stone Walls Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
The only field guide to stone walls in the Northeast."Every stone wall is unique and every stone tells a story," says Robert M. Thorson, the author of the first field guide to historic New England stone walls-- one that helps you identify and appreciate those in your yard, neighborhood, and throughout the Northeast.Exploring Stone Walls is like being in Thorson's geology classroom, as he presents the many clues that allow you to determine any wall's history, age, and purpose. Thorson highlights forty-five places to see interesting and noteworthy walls, many of which are in public parks and preserves, from Acadia National Park in Maine to the South Fork of Long Island. Visit the tallest stone wall (Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island), the most famous (Robert Frost's mending wall in Derry, New Hampshire), and many more. This field guide will broaden your horizons and deepen your appreciation of New England's rural history.
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Walker Books (February 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0802777082
ISBN-13: 978-0802777089
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.5 x 7.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #364,746 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #61 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Geophysics #142 in Books > Science & Math > Earth Sciences > Rocks & Minerals #270 in Books > Travel > United States > Northeast > New England
The book, Exploring Stone Walls, A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls by Robert Thorson is split up into eleven detailed chapters. From there it is distributed into three separate sections. The first section is divided into four chapters. Thorson mainly talks about how there are many different types of life in and or around a stone wall. Many different types of organisms live here including the smallest life forms such as lichens and bacteria to large mammals such as dogs and cats. Although Thorson doesn't give much of an overview about this section, it is highly detailed fact-wise. I found this quite interesting because even if you are not an in-depth stonewall observer, than you can still have an enjoyable time watching them if you also have other interests such as ecology or if you're a naturalist. During the course of this book, there was one small segment about how he talked about artificial stone being very abundant throughout New England. I feel like this had little reference to the rest of the topics that Thorson was explaining. But there was an extremely well-developed chapter that I felt helped me overcome the very puzzling question of "How do you know whether to classify stone as a wall or a pile?" Very challenging question. Or is it? There is a simple answer to this problem. If the wall is anything less than four times long than it is wide it is a pile and vice-versa. In chapter eight of the book there is a well thought of segment about how to determine a certain wall's age. If you like to have history tied in with reading than you'll like this book. I didn't enjoy the chapter about the terrain because it was too detailed and it barely even talked about the walls. But his best chapter was chapter eleven, where he described some of his personal favorite stone walls to visit. This is even more interesting if you love to travel and explore. Overall, Thorson is a very good author and many people will benefit reading this book.
This author has loads of good information collected in one little book. He also has a website and other books. I'm an engineer and was asked to evaluate some stone walls, and this book gave the background I wanted.
Much undervalued as "life forms" of natural fencing through which New England and New York, New Hampshire grew from the ashes, and became the well organized, fenced, places they are, signaling a permanence of mutual respect which all could recognize as unobtrusive natural necessities of increasingly populated areas.Forms of civilization which should be respected, and not overlooked as insignificant for their maintenance free ability to provide necessary boundaries, markers for all time!
Love stone walls. My grandfather built his own in Orange Connecticut. The ole homstead is long gone now. Condos are here for good or bad.
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