July 26.
At Cohasset.
Called on Captain Snow, who remembered hearing fishermen say that they “fitted out at Thoreau's” remembered him. He had commanded a packet between Boston or New York and England.
Spoke of the wave which he sometimes met on the Atlantic coming against the wind, and which indicated that the wind was blowing from an opposite quarter at a distance, the undulation travelling faster than the wind.
They see Cape Cod loom here. Thought the Bay between here and Cape Ann thirty fathoms deep; between here and Cape Cod, sixty or seventy fathoms.
The “Annual of Scientific Discovery” for 1851 says, quoting a Mr. A. G. Findley, “Waves travel very great distances, and are often raised by distant hurricanes, having been felt simultaneously at St. Helena and Ascension, though 600 miles apart, and it is probable that ground swells often originate at the Cape of Good Hope, 3000 miles distant.”
Sailors tell of tide-rips. Some are thought to be occasioned by earthquakes.
The ocean at Cohasset did not look as if any were ever shipwrecked in it. Not a vestige of a wreck left. It was not grand and sublime now, but beautiful.
The water held in the little hollows of the rocks, on the receding of the tide, is so crystal-pure that you cannot believe it salt, but wish to drink it.
The architect of a Minot Rock lighthouse might profitably spend day studying the worn rocks of Cohasset shore, and learn the power of the waves, see what kind of sand the sea is using to grind them down.
A fine delicate seaweed, which some properly enough call sea-green.
Saw here the staghorn, or velvet, sumach (Rhus typhina), so called from form of young branches, a size larger than the Rhus glabra common with us.
The Plantago maritima, or sea plantain, properly named. I guessed its name before I knew what it was called by botanists.
The American sea-rocket (Bunias edentula) I suppose it was that I saw, the succulent plant with much cut leaves and small pinkish (?) flowers.
A fine delicate seaweed, which some properly enough call sea-green.
Saw here the staghorn, or velvet, sumach (Rhus typhina), so called from form of young branches, a size larger than the Rhus glabra common with us.
The Plantago maritima, or sea plantain, properly named. I guessed its name before I knew what it was called by botanists.
The American sea-rocket (Bunias edentula) I suppose it was that I saw, the succulent plant with much cut leaves and small pinkish (?) flowers.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 26, 1851
July 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 26
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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