WHERE THE LASERS DARE NOT SAIL. Harvard's John R. Stilgoe, the Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies has written Metropolitan Corridor as well as the preface to the second volume of When the Railroad Leaves Town (this volume includes Carpentersville, Lake Geneva, and Sturgeon Bay.) He's an O Scaler with more patience than I have at adapting a natural stone basement to a decent layout. You could look that up. But it's his penchant for messing about in boats that gives me Book Review No. 50, Shallow Water Dictionary. It's an exploration of the terminology of the coastal regions of southern Massachusetts, with a close reading of vintage dictionaries (some older than his basement.) The work on oars and rowing is instructive. One suspects that John would like to refer to canoes and kayaks as affectations of a certain kind of snobbery, but he doesn't quite do that. The discussion of flats and spits is Required Reading for any landlubber with a four wheel drive yuppiemobile who would like to drive out to that high spot for a picnic. (Better to row over, and mind the currents and the tides. Don't get bored.)

Some of the regionalisms are interesting. The Massachusetts dictionaries refer to a "creek" as the saltwater inlet of a small stream. In Massachusetts, the freshwater part is a "brook." That's a bit jarring to someone who grew up near the Honey Creek Parkway and learned early on about the Duck Crick River (to use the local pronunciation), both of which drain into Lake Michigan, still, despite the zebra mussels, lampreys, and gobys, freshwater. The nature of "skiff" is instructive as well. My maternal grandfather built what he called a skiff once. It was a low-freeboard, double-ended rowboat. Scale down a Monitor-style hull with whaleback decks at each end (there is no bow and stern as we usually understand it) and place oarlocks midships. At one time, the Melges Boat Works offered something they called a duck skiff which was more like what the New Englanders call a duckboat, or perhaps a punt.

There are a number of other surprises that will trap the unwary hiker who ventures too close to the ocean, if the coast is anything other than beach or sea-wall. Many of them have their own special words, and their special hazards. Read and prepare.