This morning the river is an inch and a half higher, or within eight inches of the top of Hoar's wall.
August 11, 2016
The other evening, returning down the river, I think I detected the convexity of the earth within a short distance. I saw the western landscape and horizon, reflected in the water fifty rods behind me, all lit up with the reflected sky, though it was a narrow picture. A stroke of my oar and the dark intervening water was interposed like a dark, opaque wall. Moving my head a few inches up or down produced the same effect; i.e., by raising my head three inches I could partially oversee the plane of the water at that point, which was otherwise concealed by the slightest convexity.
P. M. — Walk to Conantum with Mr. Bradford.
He gives me a sprig of Cassia Marilandica, wild senna, found by Minot Pratt just below Leighton's by the road side. How long? P. thought it in prime August 10th.
Aster puniceus a day or more.
A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, this side Corner Spring, which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st (?). (I saw it out the 7th.) It does not correspond exactly to any described. Stem three to six feet high, branched at top, purple with a bloom, roughish, especially the peduncles. Leaves opposite, except a few small ones amid the branches, thick , ovate or ovate-lanceolate, taper-pointed, three-nerved, obscurely and remotely toothed, rough above, smooth and whitish below, abruptly contracted into margined petioles. Scales of the involucre lanceolate, taper-pointed, subequal, exceeding the disk, ciliate; rays eight or nine, one and a half or more inches long, chaff black. Edge of meadow.
Measured a mulgedium, eight feet three inches long and hollow all the way.
Some boy had fixed an arch-angelica stem so as to conduct the water at the spring close by.
Elder-berries in a day or two.
I see some Hypericum angulosum turned a delicate clear purple.
Polygonum dumetorum at Bittern Cliff, one flower gone to seed (!); say day or two.
7 p. m. — The river has risen about two inches to day, and is now within six inches of the top of Hoar's wall.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1856
I think I detected the convexity of the earth. . . by raising my head three inches. See June 7, 1851 ("You may walk out in any direction over the earth's surface, lifting your horizon, and everywhere your path, climbing the convexity of the globe, leads you between heaven and earth.”); August 23, 1851 ("We experience pleasure when an elevated field or even road in which we may be walking holds its level toward the horizon at a tangent to the earth, is not convex with the earth’s surface, but an absolute level."); March 28, 1858 ("On ascending the hill next his home, every man finds that he dwells in a shallow concavity whose sheltering walls are the convex surface of the earth, beyond which he cannot see.") See also Samuel Birley Rowbotham ("If the earth is a globe, and is 25,000 English statute miles in circumference, the surface of all standing water must have a certain degree of convexity—every part must be an arc of a circle. From the summit of any such arc there will exist a curvature or declination of 8 inches in the first statute mile. In the second mile the fall will be 32 inches; in the third mile, 72 inches, or 6 feet." ~ wikipedia)
Aster puniceus a day or more. See August 30, 1856 ("The Aster puniceus is hardly yet in prime; its great umbel-shaped tops not yet fully out.")
A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, this side Corner Spring, which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st (?). (I saw it out the 7th.) It does not correspond exactly to any described. See August 12, 1856 ("Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus (which may have opened near August 1st, say only a week). Only the first flowers out. At edge of the last clearing south of spring. I cannot identify it."); September 2, 1856 ("A short time ago, I was satisfied that there was but one kind of sunflower (divaricatus) indigenous here. Hearing that one had found another kind, it occurred to me that I had seen a taller one than usual lately, but not so distinctly did I remember this as to name it to him or even fully remember it myself. (I rather remembered it afterward.) But within that hour my genius conducted me to where I had seen the tall plants, and it was the other man's new kind. The next day I found a third kind, miles from there, and, a few days after, a fourth in another direction. It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading in some remote swamp where I have just found something novel and feel more than usually remote from the town. Or some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Helianthus
Measured a mulgedium, eight feet three inches long and hollow all the way. See August 7, 1856 ("One mulgedium at Corner Spring is at least ten feet high and hollow all the way. "); August 12, 1856 ("The mulgedium in that swamp is very abundant and a very stately plant, so erect and soldier-like, in large companies, rising above all else, with its very regular long, sharp, elliptic head and bluish-white flowers.")
Elder-berries in a day or two. See August 9, 1854 ("'Walden' published. Elder-berries."); August 23, 1856 ("Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries
Hypericum angulosum turned a delicate clear purple. See July 25, 1856 ("Up river to see hypericums out.”); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening. The H. angulosum has a pod one-celled (with three parietal placentae), conical, oblong, acute, at length longer than the sepals, purple.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)
I think I detected the convexity of the earth. . . by raising my head three inches. See June 7, 1851 ("You may walk out in any direction over the earth's surface, lifting your horizon, and everywhere your path, climbing the convexity of the globe, leads you between heaven and earth.”); August 23, 1851 ("We experience pleasure when an elevated field or even road in which we may be walking holds its level toward the horizon at a tangent to the earth, is not convex with the earth’s surface, but an absolute level."); March 28, 1858 ("On ascending the hill next his home, every man finds that he dwells in a shallow concavity whose sheltering walls are the convex surface of the earth, beyond which he cannot see.") See also Samuel Birley Rowbotham ("If the earth is a globe, and is 25,000 English statute miles in circumference, the surface of all standing water must have a certain degree of convexity—every part must be an arc of a circle. From the summit of any such arc there will exist a curvature or declination of 8 inches in the first statute mile. In the second mile the fall will be 32 inches; in the third mile, 72 inches, or 6 feet." ~ wikipedia)
Aster puniceus a day or more. See August 30, 1856 ("The Aster puniceus is hardly yet in prime; its great umbel-shaped tops not yet fully out.")
A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, this side Corner Spring, which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st (?). (I saw it out the 7th.) It does not correspond exactly to any described. See August 12, 1856 ("Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus (which may have opened near August 1st, say only a week). Only the first flowers out. At edge of the last clearing south of spring. I cannot identify it."); September 2, 1856 ("A short time ago, I was satisfied that there was but one kind of sunflower (divaricatus) indigenous here. Hearing that one had found another kind, it occurred to me that I had seen a taller one than usual lately, but not so distinctly did I remember this as to name it to him or even fully remember it myself. (I rather remembered it afterward.) But within that hour my genius conducted me to where I had seen the tall plants, and it was the other man's new kind. The next day I found a third kind, miles from there, and, a few days after, a fourth in another direction. It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading in some remote swamp where I have just found something novel and feel more than usually remote from the town. Or some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Helianthus
Measured a mulgedium, eight feet three inches long and hollow all the way. See August 7, 1856 ("One mulgedium at Corner Spring is at least ten feet high and hollow all the way. "); August 12, 1856 ("The mulgedium in that swamp is very abundant and a very stately plant, so erect and soldier-like, in large companies, rising above all else, with its very regular long, sharp, elliptic head and bluish-white flowers.")
Elder-berries in a day or two. See August 9, 1854 ("'Walden' published. Elder-berries."); August 23, 1856 ("Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries
Hypericum angulosum turned a delicate clear purple. See July 25, 1856 ("Up river to see hypericums out.”); July 26, 1856 ("Arranged the hypericums in bottles this morning and watched their opening. The H. angulosum has a pod one-celled (with three parietal placentae), conical, oblong, acute, at length longer than the sepals, purple.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)
The river has risen about two inches to day, and is now within six inches of the top of Hoar's wall. See August 10, 1856 ("The river has been rising all day. It is between two and a half and three feet higher than ten days ago . . . It is within nine and a half inches of the top of Hoar's wall at 6 p. m. "); August 22, 1856 ("Owing to the rain of the 8th and before, two days and two nights, the river rose to within six inches of the top of Hoar's wall. It had fallen about one half, when the rain began again on the night of the 20th, and again continued about two nights and two days, though so much did not fall as before; but, the river being high, it is now rising fast . . . It is within three inches of the top of Hoar's wall at 7 p. m.")
August 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 11
August 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 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 © 2009-2021
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