Surely the ice is a great and absorbing phenomenon.
Consider how much of the surface of the town it occupies,
how much attention it monopolizes!
We do not commonly distinguish more than one kind of water in the river,
but what various kinds of ice there are!
Henry Thoreau, January 31, 1859
The green of the sky
and of the ice and water
toward evening.
I look into the clear sky with its floating clouds in the northwest as from night into day, now at 4 P.M. The sun sets about five. Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown. January 24, 1852
Returning across the river just as the sun was setting behind the Hollowell place, the ice eastward of me a few rods, where the snow was blown off, was as green as bottle glass, seen at the right angle, though all around, above and below, was one unvaried white, — a vitreous glass green. Just as I have seen the river green in a winter morning. This phenomenon is to be put with the blue in the crevices of the snow. February 19, 1852 Compare January 27, 1854 ("Walden ice has a green tint close by, but is distinguished by its blueness at a distance") and Walden (" Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue, and you can easily tell it from the white ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a mile off. Sometimes one of those great cakes slips from the ice-man's sled into the village street, and lies there for a week like a great emerald, an object of interest to all passers.)
The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green. February 21, 1854
Recrossing the river behind Dodd’s, now at 4 P. M., the sun quite low, the open reach just below is quite green, a vitreous green, as if seen through a junk-bottle. Perhaps I never observed this phenomenon but when the sun was low. December 30, 1855
Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it. January 7, 1856
The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast. December 25, 1858
I come across to the road south of the hill to see the pink on the snow-clad hill at sunset. About half an hour before sunset this intensely clear cold evening (thermometer at five -6°), I observe all the sheets of ice (and they abound everywhere now in the fields), when I look from one side about at right angles with the sun’s rays, reflect a green light. This is the case even when they are in the shade. I walk back and forth in the road waiting to see the pink. The windows on the skirts of the village reflect the setting sun with intense brilliancy, a dazzling glitter, it is so cold. Standing thus on one side of the hill, I begin to see a pink light reflected from the snow there about fifteen minutes before the sun sets. This gradually deepens to purple and violet in some places, and the pink is very distinct, especially when, after looking at the simply white snow on other sides, you turn your eyes to the hill. Even after all direct sunlight is withdrawn from the hill top, as well as from the valley in which you stand, you see, if you are prepared to discern it, a faint and delicate tinge of purple or violet there. This was in a very clear and cold evening when the thermometer was -6°. This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun. January 10, 1859
To-night I notice, this warm evening, that there is most green in the ice when I go directly from the sun. There is also considerable when I go directly toward it, but more than that a little one side; but when I look at right angles with the sun, I see none at all. The water (where open) is also green. I see a rosy tinge like dust on the snow when I look directly toward the setting sun, but very little on the hills. Methinks this pink on snow (as well as blue shadows) requires a clear, cold evening. At least such were the two evenings on which I saw it this winter. January 19, 1859
The green of the ice and water begins to be visible about half an hour before sunset. Is it produced by the reflected blue of the sky mingling with the yellow or pink of the setting sun? January 20, 1859
The green of the ice
begins to be visible
just before sunset.
The earth being generally bare, I notice on the ice where it slopes up eastward a little, a distinct rosy light (or pink) reflected from it generally, half an hour before sunset. This is a colder evening than of late, and there is so much the more of it. January 23, 1859
When I look westward now to the flat snow-crusted shore, it reflects a strong violet color. Also the pink light reflected from the low, flat snowy surfaces amid the ice on the meadows, just before sunset, is a constant phenomenon these clear winter days. Whole fields and sides of hills are often the same, but it is more distinct on these flat islands of snow scattered here and there over the meadow ice. I also see this pink in the dust made by the skaters. Perhaps the green seen at the same time in ice and water is produced by the general yellow or amber light of this hour, mingled with the blue of the reflected sky? ? January 31, 1859
As usual, I notice large pools of greenish water in the fields, on an icy bottom, which cannot owe their greenness to the reflected blue mingled with the yellowish light at sundown, as I supposed in the case of the green ice and water in clear winter days, for I see the former now at midday and in a rain-storm, when no sky is visible. I think that these green pools over an icy bottom must be produced by the yellow or common earth stain in the water mingling with the blue which is reflected from the ice. Many pools have so large a proportion of this yellow tinge as not to look green but yellow. The stain, the tea, of withered vegetation — grass and leaves — and of the soil supplies the yellow tint. But perhaps those patches of emerald sky, sky just tinged with green, which we sometimes see, far in the horizon or near it, are produced in the same way as I thought the green ice was, — some yellow glow reflected from a cloud mingled with the blue of the atmosphere. One might say that the yellow of the earth mingled with the blue of the sky to make the green of vegetation. March 8, 1859
Looking northeast over Hosmer's meadow, I see still the rosy light reflected from the low snow-spits, alternating with green ice there. Apparently because the angles of incidence and excidence are equal, therefore we see the green in ice at sundown when we look aslant over the ice, our visual ray making such an angle with it as the yellow light from the western horizon does in coming to it. March 10, 1859
I have loitered so long on the meadow that before I get to Ball's Hill those patches of bare ice (where water has oozed out and frozen) already reflect a green light which advertises me of the lateness of the hour. You may walk eastward in the winter afternoon till the ice begins to look green, half to three quarters of an hour before sunset, the sun having sunk behind you to the proper angle. Then it is time to turn your steps homeward. Soon after, too, the ice began to boom, or fire its evening gun, another warning that the end of the day was at hand, and a little after the snow reflected a distinct rosy light, the sun having reached the grosser atmosphere of the earth. These signs successively prompt us once more to retrace our steps. Even the fisherman, who perhaps has not observed any sign but that the sun is ready to sink beneath the horizon, is winding up his lines and starting for home; or perhaps he leaves them to freeze in. In a clear but pleasant winter day, I walk away till the ice begins to look green and I hear it boom, or perhaps till the snow reflects a rosy light. December 23, 1859
I went to the river immediately after sunrise. I could [see] a little greenness in the ice, and also a little rose-color from the snow, but far less than before the sun set. Do both these phenomena require a gross atmosphere? Apparently the ice is greenest when the sun is twenty or thirty minutes above the horizon . . . To-night I notice the rose-color in the snow and the green in the ice at the same time, having been looking out for them. December 29, 1859
They are very different seasons in the winter when the ice of the river and meadows and ponds is bare, — blue or green, a vast glittering crystal, — and when it is all covered with snow or slosh; and our moods correspond. The former may be called a crystalline winter. January 18, 1860,
Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green, and a rose-color to be reflected from the low snow-patches. I see the color from the snow first where there is some shade, as where the shadow of a maple falls afar over the ice and snow. From this is reflected a purple tinge when I see none elsewhere. Some shadow or twilight, then, is necessary, umbra mixed with the reflected sun. Off Holden Wood, where the low rays fall on the river from between the fringe of the wood, the snow-patches are not rose-color, but a very dark purple like a grape, and thus there are all degrees from pure white to black. When crossing Hubbard's broad meadow, the snow-patches are a most beautiful crystalline purple, like the petals of some flowers, or as if tinged with cranberry juice. It is quite a faery scene, surprising and wonderful, as if you walked amid those rosy and purple clouds that you see float in the evening sky. What need to visit the crimson cliffs of Beverly? I thus find myself returning over a green sea, winding amid purple islets, and the low sedge of the meadow on one side is really a burning yellow The hunter may be said to invent his game, as Neptune did the horse, and Ceres corn. It is twenty above at 5.30, when I get home. I walk over a smooth green sea, or aequor, the sun just disappearing in the cloudless horizon, amid thousands of these flat isles as purple as the petals of a flower. It would not be more enchanting to walk amid the purple clouds of the sunset sky. And, by the way, this is but a sunset sky under our feet, produced by the same law, the same slanting rays and twilight. Here the clouds are these patches of snow or frozen vapor, and the ice is the greenish sky between them. Thus all of heaven is realized on earth. You have seen those purple fortunate isles in the sunset heavens, and that green and amber sky between them. Would you believe that you could ever walk amid those isles? You can on many a winter evening. I have done so a hundred times. The ice is a solid crystalline sky under our feet. February 12, 1860
The green of evergreen woods , of the sky , and of the ice and water toward evening . . .I suspect that the green and rose (or purple) are not noticed on ice and snow unless it is pretty cold, and perhaps there is less greenness of the ice now than in December, when the days were shorter . . . The sun being in a cloud, partly obscured, I see a very dark purple tinge on the flat drifts on the ice earlier than usual , and when afterward the sun comes out below the cloud, I see no purple nor rose. Hence it seems that the twilight has as much or more to do with this phenomenon, supposing the sun to be low, than the slight angle of its rays with the horizon. February 13, 1860
The green of the sky
and of the ice and water
toward evening.
I notice a very pale pink reflection from snowy roofs and sides of white houses at sunrise. So both the pink and the green are phenomena of the morning, but in a much less degree, which shows that they depend more on the twilight and the grossness of the atmosphere than on the angle at which the sunlight falls. February 20, 1860
About 8th and 12th, the beauty of the ice on the meadows, partly or slightly rotted, was noticeable, with the curious figures in it, and, in the coolest evenings, the green ice and rosy isles of flat drifts. March 9, 1860
And now, if I am not mistaken, you cease to notice the green ice at sunset and the rosy snow, the air being warmer and softer. Yet the marks and creases and shadings and bubbles, etc., in the rotting ice are still very interesting. March 25, 1860
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, when the ice turns green
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 © 2009-2022
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