An island forms in the river.

July 3. 

P. M. —To Assabet River.  

July 3, 2016

In the main stream, at the Rock, I am surprised to see flags and pads, laying the foundation of an islet in the middle, where I had thought it deep before. Apparently a hummock lifted by ice sunk there in the spring, and this may be the way in which many an island has been formed in the river. 

I scare up one or two woodcocks in different places by the shore, where they are feeding, and in a meadow. They go off with a whistling flight. Can see where their bills have probed the mud. 

See a sternothaerus on a small stump two feet over water. I approach and take hold of it, but cannot easily remove it. It appears to be shrunk on, withering away and dying there. It barely moves its head and eyes slightly, and its flippers look very much shrunken, yet it tumbles off after I leave. Apparently a male. 

I notice afterward, on succeeding days, many of them resting thus sluggishly, and find that I can approach and handle them and leave them as I found them. They appear much more sluggish than the other kinds now, though they were active enough in the spring. 

The tortoises improve every rock, and willow slanting over the water, and every floating board and rail. You will see one on the summit of a black willow stump several feet high, and two or more part way up. Some tumble from a height of five or six feet into the water before you. 

Even the great snap-turtle puts his head out and climbs up a rock on the bank with the rest.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 3, 1856

This may be the way in which many an island has been formed in the river.  See February 28, 1855 (“The greater part of those hummocks there are probably, if not certainly, carried by the ice. . . . This is a powerful agent at work.”); February 25, 1851 ("I see from the bridge,. . . what looks like an island directly over the channel. . . .It is the crust of the meadow afloat, . . .another agent employed in the distribution of plants.”)