The pecuniary value of the book.

November 28. 

Monday. 

Saw boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear. 

Settled with J. Munroe & Co., and on a new account placed twelve of my books with him on sale. I have paid him directly out of pocket since the book was published two hundred and ninety dollars and taken his receipt for it. This does not include postage on proof-sheets, etc., etc. I have received from other quarters about fifteen dollars. This has been the pecuniary value of the book. 

Saw at the Natural History rooms the skeleton of a moose with horns. The length of the spinal processes (?) over the shoulder was very great. The hind legs were longer than the front, and the horns rose about two feet above the shoulders and spread between four and five, I judged. 

Dr. Harris described to me his finding a species of cicindela at the White Mountains this fall (the same he had found there one specimen of some time ago), supposed to be very rare, found at St. Peter's River and at Lake Superior; but he proves it to be common near the White Mountains.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1853

Boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear See December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture."); December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business."); December 15, 1855 ("The boys have skated a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet.")

I have paid him directly out of pocket since the book was published two hundred and ninety dollars. See November 20, 1853 (“I was obliged to manufacture a thousand dollars' worth of pencils and slowly dispose of and finally sacrifice them, in order to pay an assumed debt of a hundred dollars.”); September 14, 1855 ("It costs so much to publish, would it not be better for the author to put his manuscripts in a safe?”)

The horns rose about two feet above the shoulders and spread between four and five, I judged. See July 23, 1857 ("[Mr. Leonard, of Bangor, a sportsman,] said that the horns of a moose would spread four feet, some times six; would weigh thirty or forty pounds")