The third day of fog

January 15.

[A fine rain in the night produces a glaze, which this morning] is quite handsome. Instead of that soft, white, faery-like mantle of down with which the trees were thickly powdered, they are now cased in a coat of mail, of icy mail, built out in many cases about as far from the twig with icy prominences. 

Birches, tree-tops, and especially slender-twigged willows or osiers are bent over by it, as they were not by the snow-white and light frost of yesterday and the day before, so that the character or expression of many trees and shrubs is wholly altered. 

I might not guess what the pollard willow row at Merrick’s shore,  with twigs one or two years old, was. 

The fog still continues through, and succeeding to, the rain. The third day of fog. The thermometer at 7.30 or 8 A. M. is at 33°.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 15, 1859