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Jamaica Pond? More like Jamaica Lake, amirite?
By adamg on Thu, 04/01/2010 - 9:28am
An alert commuter snapped this around 8 a.m. while stopped at the light (we hope!) by the boathouse.
Steve Garfield has a couple of photos from yesterday.
Also see: Moseley's in the Charles.
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Comments
Ironically
Jamaica Pond actually is by definition a lake, the largest lake in Boston.
The largest pond in Boston, of course, is Lake Hibiscus (go figure).
Pond or lake?
Isn't it technically a "great pond"?
Yeah, yeah, Jamaica Pond: Great pond or greatest pond? It's one of those antique designations that still pops up in legal discussions from time to time - like whether a town can bar non-residents from a "great pond."
Pretty good danes
At least in this case, we know that if it's too big to be a great pond, it then gets to be a lake.
You know what's really fracked up? On the AKC website, it specifies that Great Danes have to be at least 30 inches tall or something. So if yours is a little smaller, is it just not a Great Dane whatsoever? Like, when someone asks you what kind of dog you have, you have to just say, "uh, just a dog."
Of course, this is coming from the same organization that lists "bitchy dogs or doggy bitches" as grounds for disqualification.
Victor Borge
Now he was a great Dane!
It flows
It's a lake because it empties into a flowing stream, in this case into the Muddy River. A pond is a body of standing water.
Now of course you could make the argument that the Muddy River doesn't really flow anymore after all the human modifications of that stream, but I'm talking about the original natural formation of Jamaica Pond.
The Great Salt Lake
doesn't empty into any flowing stream -- that's why it's so salty.
Jamaica Pond didn't always flow
I think Jamaica Pond was carved by a glacier. The connection to the Muddy River was added later by Olmsted, to make a kind of flushing system into the Charles. I think I read about this in that book The Natural History of Boston in the soon to be late Faneuil Library. Why is it called Jamaica?
Why is it called
Several explanations - mostly unlikely.
http://www.jphs.org/sources/2005/4/10/how-jamaica-...
There are references in Colonial Roxbury records of an Indian's name, variously spelled Jameco, Jemaco, etc. That's my most-likely choice.
There is no universally
There is no universally accepted distinction between pond and lake. One definition requires that a pond be shallow enough to allow rooted plants at the bottom. On the other hand, Jamaica Pond is known as a kettle pond, not kettle lake.
In Colonial law, a pond of greater than 10 acres in surface area was considered a Great Pond. This allowed access to the public for "fishing and fowling." Jamaica Pond was once known simply as "the Great Pond."
Jamaica Pond does not have a surface outlet to the Muddy River. The surface of Ward's Pond and the Muddy River is considerably lower than that of Jamaica Pond, so if they were directly connected, the water in Jamaica Pond would flow out until the two ponds were at the same level. Both are spring-fed and connected through the same hydrological system. That area is all sand and gravel, through which water flows slowly.
Before the latest storm (on
Before the latest storm (on Saturday), it was already overflowing its banks onto the paths around it in a lot of low spots. I was kinda surprised because I hadn't heard anything about it. I'm glad to see I wasn't imagining how bad it was.