Ice organ pipes

January 11.

Now is the time to go out and see the ice organ-pipes. 

I walk the whole length of the Cliffs, just at the base of the rocks, for this purpose. 

These great organ-pipes are formed where the water flows over triangular projections of the rocks. These solid, pipe-like icicles commonly unite by their sides and form rows of pillars or irregular colonnades, run together, between which here and there you can insert your hand.   

And behind these perpendicular pipes, or congregated pillars, or colonnades run together, are formed the prettiest little aisles or triangular alcoves with lichen-clad sides. 

Then the ice spreads out in a thin crust over the rock, with an uneven surface as of bubbling water, and you can see the rock indistinctly through ice three or four inches thick, and so on, by successive steps or shelves down the rock.

It is now quite cold, and in many places only a sharp spear of purest crystal, which does not reach the rock below, is left to tell of the water that has flowed here. 

The perpendicularity of the icicles contrasts strangely with the various angles of the rocks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 11, 1854

Now is the time to go out and see the ice organ-pipes. See February 14, 1852 ("At the Cliffs, the rocks are in some places covered with ice; icicles at once hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes, in front of the rock.  . . . The shadow of the water flowing and pulsating behind . . .these stalactites in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.”); March 3, 1857 ("[W]hen the rill reaches the perpendicular face of the cliff, its constant drip at night builds great organ-pipes of a ringed structure, which run together, buttressing the rock.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 11

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023