The crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points.

February 8. 

9 A. M. —To Fair Haven Pond. 

A clear and a pleasanter and warmer day than we have had for a long time. 

For two or three weeks, successive light and dry snows have fallen on the old crust and been drifting about on it, leaving it at last three quarters bare and forming drifts against the fences, etc., or here and there low, slaty, fractured ones in mid-field, or pure white hard-packed ones. These drifts on the crust are commonly quite low and flat. 

But yesterday’s snow turning to rain, which froze as it fell, there is now a glaze on the trees, giving them a hoary look, icicles like rakes’ teeth on the rails, and a thin crust over all the snow. At this hour the crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points or mirrors, one to every six inches, at least. This crust is cracked like ice into irregular figures a foot or two square. 

Perhaps the snow has settled considerably, for the track in the roads is the highest part. Some heard a loud cracking in the ground or ice last night. 

I cut through, five or six rods from the east shore of Fair Haven, and find seven inches of snow, nine inches of snow ice and eight of water ice, — seventeen of both. The water rises to within half an inch of the top of the ice. 

Isaac Garfield has cut a dozen holes on the west side. The ice there averages nineteen inches in thickness. Half the holes are five or six rods from the shore, and the rest nine or ten, the water from three  to seven feet deep. In some places more than half the whole depth is ice. The thinnest ice is 17 inches; the thickest, 20+. The inner row invariably the thickest. The water rises above the ice in some cases.

The snow begins (at noon) to soften somewhat in the road. Coming home at twelve, the ice is fast melting on the trees, and I see in the drops the colors of all the gems. 

The snow is soft, and the eaves begin to run as not for many weeks. Thermometer at 3.30 P. M., 31°.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal. February 8, 1856

At this hour the crust sparkles with a myriad brilliant points or mirrors. See February 3, 1852 (“This snow . . . is two feet deep, pure and powdery. From a myriad little crystal mirrors the moon is reflected, which is the untarnished sparkle of its surface.”); ; February 13, 1859 ("A dry, powdery snow about one inch deep, from which, as I walk toward the sun, this perfectly clear, bright afternoon, at 3.30 o’clock, the colors of the rainbow are reflected from a myriad fine facets.");.January 12, 1860 ("Going from the sun, I see a myriad sparkling points scattered over its surface, — little mirror-like facets, . . .which has fallen in the proper position, reflecting an intensely bright little sun. Such is the glitter or sparkle on the surface of a snow freshly fallen when the sun comes out and you walk from it, the points of light constantly changing."); January 29, 1860 ("A parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow as I walk toward the sun. ")

The ice is fast melting on the trees, and I see in the drops the colors of all the gems. See February 8, 1857 ("My diffuse and vaporous life becomes as the frost leaves and spiculae radiant as gems on the weeds and stubble in a winter morning.") See also December 6, 1858 ("Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 8

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