The sea, like Walden, is greenish

July 10.

The sea, like Walden, is greenish within half a mile of shore, then blue. The purple tinges near the shore run far up and down. 

Walked to marsh head of East Harbor Creek. Marsh rosemary (Statice Limonium), “meadow root,” rays small, out some time, with five reddish petals. Also see there samphire of two kinds, herbacea and mucronata. Juncus Gerardii, black grass, in bloom. 

The pigweed about seashore is remarkably white and mealy. 

Great devil’s-needles above the bank, apparently catching flies. 

I see a brood of young peeps running on the beach under the sand-hills ahead of me. Indigo out. 

Heard a cannon from the sea, which echoed under the bank dully, as if a part of the bank had fallen; then saw a pilot-boat standing down and the pilot looking through his glass toward the distant outward-bound vessel, which was putting back to speak with him. The latter sailed many a mile to meet her. She put her sails aback and communicated alongside.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 10, 1855

The sea, like Walden, is greenish within half a mile of shore, then blue.... See September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, [Walden] reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green."); August 27, 1852 ("Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green.")

July 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 10

  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 © 2009-2021