Looking toward the sun.

January 16. 

P. M. — To Walden and thence via Cassandra Ponds to Fair Haven and down river. 

There is still a good deal of ice on the north sides of woods and in and about the sheltered swamps. As we go southwestward through the cassandra hollows toward the declining sun, they look successively, both by their form and color, like burnished silvery shields in the midst of which we walked, looking toward the sun. 

The whole surface of the snow the country over, and of the ice, as yesterday, is rough, as if composed of hailstones half melted together. This being the case, I noticed yesterday, when walking on the river, that where there was little or no snow and this rough surface was accordingly dark, you might have thought that the ice was covered with cinders, from the innumerable black points reflecting the dark water. My companion thought that cinders had fallen on that part of the ice. 

The snow which three-quarters conceals the cassandra in these ponds, and every twig and trunk and blade of withered sedge, is thus covered or cased with ice, and accordingly, as I have said, when you go facing the sun, the hollows look like a glittering shield set round with brilliants. That bent sedge in the midst of the shield, each particular blade of it being married to an icy wire twenty times its size at least, shines like polished silver rings or semicircles. It must have been far more splendid here yesterday, before any of the ice fell off. 

No wonder my English companion says that our scenery is more spirited than that of England. The snow-crust is rough with the wreck of brilliants under the trees, — an inch or two thick with them under many trees, where they last several days. 

When, this evening, I took a split hickory stick which was very slightly charred or scorched, but quite hot, out of my stove, I perceived a strong scent precisely like that of a burnt or roasted walnut, — as was natural enough.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 16, 1859

Cassandra Ponds. see Geoff Wisner @geoffwisner.bsky.social [The Cassandra Ponds were another name for what Thoreau usually called the Andromeda Ponds. "Cassandra" was his name for leatherleaf, Chamaedaphne calyculata.] https://bsky.app/profile/geoffwisner.bsky.social/post/3mckcnk3ryc2a

January 16  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 16

The snow-crust is rough

with the wreck of brilliants

an inch or two thick.

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 © 2009-2025

The indistinct trail of wild animals — foxes, etc. — and sportsmen.

September 19

Sunday. P. M. -— To Cassandra Ponds. 

We go through Sedge Hollow. See a small hole, perhaps a skunk’s, in that hollow, and, about the mouth, fragments of a hornets’ or wasps’ nest. I knew that foxes were said to tear in pieces these nests for the sake of the grubs or old hornets left in them. Perhaps the skunk does. 

These dry, sedgy hollows are peculiar and interesting to me. The fine, thick sedge makes a soft bed to recline on, and is recurved and lodging like a curly head. These dry hollows, side by side with the deeper and wet ones, are surrounded by hazel bushes and panicled andromeda instead of alders and willows. There is this sort of analogy to the wet ones, or ponds. In the lowest part, even here, I perceive that a different and coarser kind of sedge grows. 

Along the middle and bottom of the hollows is the indistinct trail of wild animals — foxes, etc. — and sportsmen. C. thinks this might be called Fox Path.

As I stand on the shore of the most westerly Cassandra Pond but one, I see in the air between me and the sun those interesting swarms of minute light-colored gnats, looking like motes in the sun. These may be allied to the winter gnat of Kirby and Spence. Do they not first appear with cooler and frosty weather, when we have had a slight foretaste of winter? Then in the clear, cool air they are seen to dance. These are about an eighth of an inch long, with a greenish body and two light-colored plumes in front; the wings not so long as the body. So I think they are different from those over the river in the spring. I see a dozen of these choirs within two or three rods, their centres about six feet above the surface of the water andromeda. These separate communities are narrow horizontally and long vertically, about eighteen inches wide and densest in the middle, regularly thinning to nothing at the edges. These individuals are constantly gyrating up and down, cutting figures of 8 like the water-bug, but keeping nearly about the same place. It is to me a very agreeable reminder of cooler weather. 

Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately. In spring it makes its due impression, and for a long time will not have done echoing, as it were, through our minds. It is even as if the atmosphere were in an unfavorable condition for this kind of music. Every musician knows how much depends on this. 

Going through low woods I see a white, dusty or mealy-looking mildew on the leaves, — oaks, etc., — the effects of the dog-days or mould season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1858

These dry, sedgy hollows are peculiar and interesting to me. Surrounded by hazel bushes and panicled andromeda there is this sort of analogy to the wet ones, or ponds. See November 24, 1857 ("You have clear open water, but shallow; then, in course of time, a shallow lake with much sedge standing in it; then, after a while, a dense andromeda bed with blueberry bushes and perhaps a wet border of sedge (as here at present); and finally, a maple swamp.")

I see in the air between me and the sun those interesting swarms of minute light-colored gnats, looking like motes in the sun. These may be allied to the winter gnat. See October 19, 1856 ("I noticed, two or three days ago, after one of those frosty mornings, half an hour before sunset of a clear and pleasant day, a swarm, — were they not of winter gnats ? — between me and the sun like so many motes,. . .Each insect was acting its part in a ceaseless dance, rising and falling a few inches while the swarm kept its place. Is not this a forerunner of winter? "); March 19, 1858 ("Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water-bugs on the water. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! See September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year.")