Row to Bittern Cliff

August 22.

P. M. – Row to Bittern Cliff. 

Now when the mikania is conspicuous, the bank is past prime, - for lilies are far gone, the pontederia is past prime, willows and button- bushes begin to look the worse for the wear thus early, — the lower or older leaves of the willows are turned yellow and decaying , — and many of the meadows are shorn. Yet now is the time for the cardinal-flower. The already methinks, yellowing willows and button - bushes, the half- shorn meadows, the higher water on their edges , with wool-grass standing over it, with the notes of flitting bobolinks and red wings of this year, in rustling flocks, all tell of the fall.

***

I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.  

Returning down the river from Bittern Cliff, I find myself inevitably exploring where the recent heavy rains have washed away the bank.

I find several pieces of Indian pottery with a rude ornament on it, not much more red than the earth itself. Looking farther, I find more fragments, which have been washed down the sandy slope in a stream.

Under a layer of shells I find in a hollowness in the ground many small pieces of bone in the soil of this bank, probably of animals the Indians ate.

In the midst of a another exposed heap of shells I find a delicate stone tool made of a soft slate-stone. Very thin and sharp on each side edge, in the middle it is is not more than an eighth of an inch thick. I suspect that this was used to open clams.

It is curious that I had expected to find as much as this, and in this very spot too, before i reached it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1860

It is curious that I had expected to find as much as this, and in this very spot too, before i reached it. See February 13, 1851 (I saw to-day, half a mile off in Sudbury, a sandy spot on the top of a hill, where I prophesied that I should find traces of the Indians."); August 22, 1854 ("There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case.") See also April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season,. . .. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads"); September 2, 1856; (" I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood,. . .”); February 4, 1858 (“It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery. ”);  and note to July 2, 1857 ("We find only the world we look for.")