The naked eye still retains some importance in the estimation of astronomers.

July 9.

When I got out of the cars at Porter’s, Cambridge, this morning, I was pleased to see the handsome blue flowers of the succory or endive (Cichorium Intybus), which reminded me that within the hour I had been whirled into a new botanical region.

They must be extremely rare, if they occur at all, in Concord. This weed is handsomer than most garden flowers.

Saw there also the Cucubalus Behen, or bladder campion, also the autumnal dandelion (Apargia autumnalis).

Visited the Observatory.

Bond said they were cataloguing the stars at Washington (?), or trying to. They do not at Cambridge; of no use with their force. Have not force enough now to make mag[netic] obs[ervations].

When I asked if an observer with the small telescope could find employment, he said, Oh yes, there was employment enough for observation with the naked eye, observing the changes in the brilliancy of stars, etc., etc., if they could only get some good observers.

One is glad to hear that the naked eye still retains some importance in the estimation of astronomers.

Coming out of town, — willingly as usual, — when I saw that reach of Charles River just above the depot, the fair, still water this cloudy evening suggesting the way to eternal peace and beauty, whence it flows, the placid, lake-like fresh water, so unlike the salt brine, affected me not a little.

I was reminded of the way in which Wordsworth so coldly speaks of some natural visions or scenes "giving him pleasure."

This is perhaps the first vision of elysium on this route from Boston.

And just then I saw an encampment of Penobscots, their wigwams appearing above the railroad fence, they, too, looking up the river as they sat on the ground, and enjoying the scene.

What can be more impressive than to look up a noble river just at evening, – one, perchance, which you have never explored, — and behold its placid waters, reflecting the woods and sky, lapsing inaudibly toward the ocean; to behold as a lake, but know it as a river, tempting the beholder to explore it and his own destiny at once? Haunt of waterfowl.

This was above the factories, — all that I saw. That water could never have flowed under a factory. How then could it have reflected the sky?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1851

One is glad to hear that the naked eye still retains some importance in the estimation of astronomers. See July 7, 1851 ("I have been to-night with Anthony Wright to look through Perez Blood's telescope a second time. . . . I am still contented to see the stars with my naked eye ."); October 20, 1852 ("Many a man, when I tell him that I have been on to a mountain, asks if I took a glass with me. No doubt, I could have seen further with a glass, and particular objects more distinctly, - could have counted more meeting-houses; but this has nothing to do with the peculiar beauty and grandeur of the view which an elevated position affords. It was not to see a few particular objects, as if they were near at hand, as I had been accustomed to see them, that I ascended the mountain, but to see an infinite variety far and near in their relation to each other, thus reduced to a single picture."); September 29, 1854 (“ When I look at the stars, nothing which the astronomers have said attaches to them . . . One might say that all views through a telescope or microscope were purely visionary, for it is only by his eye and not by any other sense —not by his whole man —that the beholder is there where he is presumed to be. It is a disruptive mode of viewing as far as the beholder is concerned.”); March 28, 1858 (" . . . the “naked eye,” as if the eye which is not covered with a spy glass should properly be called naked.") See also note to March 13, 1854 ("Bought a telescope to-day for eight dollars.")

.

What can be more impressive than to look up a noble river just at evening, – one, perchance, which you have never explored, — and behold its placid waters, reflecting the woods and sky, lapsing inaudibly toward the ocean; to behold as a lake, but know it as a river, tempting the beholder to explore it and his own destiny at once? See March 31, 1853 (" It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top, like the summits of Uncanoonuc, well seen from this hill, whereon you camped for a night in your youth, which you have never revisited, still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it")

July 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 9

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

A Lilium Canadense at three-ribbed goldenrod wall.

August 25. 

Tuesday. P. M. – To Hill and meadow. 

August 25, 2017

Plucked a Lilium Canadense at three-ribbed goldenrod wall, six and eight twelfths feet high, with a pyramid of seed-vessels fourteen inches long by nine wide, the first an irregular or diagonal whorl of six, surmounted by a whorl of three. The upper two whorls of leaves are diagonal or scattered.

It agrees with Gray's L. Canadense except in size, also with G.'s superbum except that the leaves of my specimen are rough on the edges and veins beneath (but I have not the flowers!). 

Bigelow says that the leaves of the L. superbum are twice as long as the internodes. These are only as long. 

This, as well as most that I saw on the Penobscot, is probably only a variety of the L. Canadense.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1857

Three-ribbed goldenrod wall. See August 2, 1856 ("A three-ribbed goldenrod by small apple, by wall at foot east side of Hill (S. gigantea ? or one of the two preceding), not nearly out. It differs from my gigantea apparently only in the leaves being perfectly smooth above and the stem smooth and pink (?) glaucous (excepting a little pubescence near the top). Very tall. Vide it by and by.")

Most that I saw on the Penobscot, is probably only a variety of the L. Canadense. See July 31, 1857 ("I got one (apparently) Lilium superbum flower, , with strongly revolute sepals and perfectly smooth leaves beneath, otherwise not large nor peculiar.")

The bog cranberry on the dinner table

August 5. 

Wednesday. 

To my surprise found on the dinner-table at Thatcher's the Vaccinium Oxycoccus. T. did not know it was anything unusual, but bought it at such a rate per bushel of Mr. Such-a-one, who brought it to market. They call it the "bog cranberry." I did not perceive that it differed from the common, unless that it was rather more skinny. 

T. has four rude pictures which belonged to Reuben Brown, on which is printed, "A. Doolittle sculpt," and these titles : — 
"Plate I. The Battle of Lexington April 19, 1775.” 
"Plate II. A View of the Town of Concord.” 
"Plate III. The Engagement at the North Bridge in Concord.” 
"Plate IV. A View of the South Part of Lexington.” 

Plate II is like that at Mr. Brooks's. In Plate III (you look westward) what appears to be the old Buttrick house has the upper story projecting over the lower. The French (Hoar's) house appears on the left. Another house is seen on the right of Buttrick's (?), perhaps Jarvis's. There is a wall on the south or town side of the road, where the British stood, and a large upright tree on the south side there, at the Bridge. 

P. M. — Rode to Old Fort Hill at the bend of the Penobscot some three miles above Bangor, to look for the site of the Indian town, — perhaps the ancient Negas? [Willis puts it on the Kenduskeag.] Found several arrowheads and two little dark and crumbling fragments of Indian earthenware, like black earth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 5, 1857

To my surprise found on the dinner-table at Thatcher's the Vaccinium Oxycoccus. See August 30, 1856 ("I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry, Vaccinium Oxycoccus . . .“); August 23, 1854 (“I find a new cranberry on the sphagnum amid the A. calyculata, — V. Oxycoccus . . .It has small, now purplish-dotted fruit, flat on the sphagnum, some turned scarlet partly, on terminal peduncles, with slender, thread-like stems and small leaves strongly revolute on the edges.”

August 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 5

 

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

It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine.

August 3. Monday. 

This was the midst of the raspberry season. We found them abundant on every carry on the East Branch and below, and children were carrying them from all sides into Bangor. I observed that they were the prominent dish on the tables, once a low scarlet mountain, garnishing the head of the table in a dish two feet across. 

Earlier the strawberries are equally abundant, and we even found a few still deep in the grass. Neither of these abound about Boston, and we saw that they were due to the peculiar air of this higher latitude. 

Though for six weeks before leaving home we had been scarcely able to lie under more than a single sheet, we experienced no hot weather in Maine. The air was uniformly fresh and bracing like that of a mountain to us, and, though the inhabitants like to make it out that it is as warm there as in Massachusetts, we were not to be cheated. It is so much the more desirable at this season to breathe the raspberry air of Maine. 

It was P. who commonly reminded us that it was dinner-time on this excursion, sometimes by turning the prow to the shore. He once made an indirect but lengthy apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but one who worked hard all day was very particular to have his dinner in good season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 3, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We started early before breakfast, the Indian being considerably better, and soon glided by Lincoln, and after another long and handsome lake-like reach, we stopped to breakfast on the west shore, two or three miles below this town. . . The small river emptying in at Lincoln is the Matanuncook. . .. So we paddled and floated along, looking into the mouths of rivers. . . .At Piscataquis Falls, just above the river of that name, we walked over the wooden railroad on the eastern shore, about one and a half miles long, while the Indian glided down the rapids. . . .We were not obliged to get out of the canoe after this on account of falls or rapids, nor, indeed, was it quite necessary here. We took less notice of the scenery to-day, because we were in quite a settled country. the river became broad and sluggish, and we saw a blue heron winging its way slowly down the stream before us. . . .The Olamon River comes in from the east in Greenbush a few miles below the Passadumkeag. . . .The Sunkhaze, another short dead stream, comes in from the east two miles above Oldtown.. . .Opposite the Sunkhaze is the main boom of the Penobscot, where the logs from far up the river are collected and assorted. . . . We landed opposite his door at about four in the afternoon, having come some forty miles this day. . . P. wanted to sell us his canoe. Said it would last seven or eight years, or, with care, perhaps ten; but we were not ready to buy it . . . This was the last that I saw of Joe Polis. We took the last train, and reached Bangor that night.")

Payt-gum-kiss

August 2. Sunday. 

August 2, 2017
(Avesong)

At a small river coming in from the south a few miles below Nicketow, the Penobscot is crooked and the place is called Payt-gum-kiss, or Petticoat, according to P.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 2, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("Sunday, August 2. Was a cloudy and unpromising morning. . . .Nicketow is called eleven miles from Mattawamkeag by the river. Our camp was, therefore, about nine miles from the latter place. . . .We reached the Mattawamkeag at half past eight in the morning, in the midst of a drizzling rain, and, after buying some sugar, set out again. . . .As a thunder-shower appeared to be coming up, we stopped opposite a barn on the west bank, in Chester, about a mile above Lincoln. Here at last we were obliged to spend the rest of the day and night, on account of our patient, whose sickness did not abate. . . .we camped in the solitary half-open barn near the bank . . .lying on new-mown hay four feet deep. The fragrance of the hay, in which many ferns, etc., were mingled, was agreeable, though it was quite alive with grasshoppers which you could hear crawling through it. This served to graduate our approach to houses and feather beds. In the night some large bird, probably an owl, flitted through over our heads, and very early in the morning we were awakened by the twittering of swallows which had their nests there.")

Botanizing the East Branch

July 31. 

Friday. 

This morning heard from the camp the red-eye, robin (P. said it was a sign of rain), tweezer-bird, i. e. parti-colored warbler, chickadee, wood thrush, and soon after starting heard or saw a blue jay. . . . 

I saw here my sweet-scented Aster macrophyllus (?) just out, also, near end of carry in rocky woods, a new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch, eight inches to two feet high. 

I also saw here, or soon after, the red cohosh berries, ripe, (for the first time in my life); spikenard, etc. 

The commonest aster of the woods was A. acuminatus, not long out, and the commonest solidago on the East Branch, Solidago squarrosa. . . .

P. said that his mother was a Province woman and as white as anybody, but his father a pure-blooded Indian. I saw no trace of white blood in his face, and others, who knew him well and also his father, were confident that his mother was an Indian and suggested that she was of the Quoddy tribe (belonged to New Brunswick), who are often quite light-colored. . . . 

[Below Bowlin stream] I got  one (apparently) Lilium superbum flower, with strongly revolute sepals and perfectly smooth leaves beneath, otherwise not large nor peculiar. 

On this East Branch we saw many of the small purple fringed orchis (Platanthera psycodes), but no large ones (P. fimbriata), which alone were noticed on the West Branch and Umbazookskus. 

Also saw often the Lysimachia ciliata, and once white cohosh berries, and at one place methinks the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum (?) with the other. . . . 

On a small bare sand or gravel bar, I observed that same Prunus which grows on the rocks at Bellows Falls, whose leaf might at first sight be mistaken for that of a willow. It is evidently the Prunus depressa (sand cherry) of Pursh, and distinct, as a variety at least, from the common allied one (P. pumila of Pursh), which is not depressed even when it grows, as it often does abundantly, in river meadows (e. g. Edmund Hosmer's on Assabet). The leaf of the former is more lanceoate-spatulate, and I have never seen it in Concord, though the P. pumila is very common here. Gray describes but one kind. 

Jackson, being some miles below this, in the East Branch, the 6th of October, twenty years ago, says, "There are several small gravelly islands covered with a profusion of deep purple beach plums, but since they had been frozen they were found to be taste less and insipid." We did not see any of these.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 31, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("We had smooth but swift water for a considerable distance, where we glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth progress ere long came to an end, and we were obliged to carry canoe and all about half a mile down the right bank, around some rapids or falls. . . .I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this fore noon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped out of the canoe and stretched our legs we found ourselves in a blueberry and raspberry garden, each side of our rocky trail around the falls being lined with one or both.. . . For seven or eight miles below that succession of " Grand " falls, the aspect of the banks as well as the character of the stream was changed. After passing a tributary from the northeast, perhaps Bowlin Stream, we had good swift smooth water, with a regular slope, such as I have described. Low, grassy banks and muddy shores began.. . Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down the stream before us. We drove him several miles, while we were looking for a good place to camp, for we expected to be overtaken by a shower, — and still we could distinguish him by his white tail, sailing away from time to time from some tree by the shore still farther down the stream... . We at length found a place to our minds, on the west bank, about a mile below the mouth of the Seboois, ...in a very dense spruce wood above a gravelly shore... .")

It suggested woodpeckers on a larger scale than ours, as were the trees and the forest

July 25. 

Saturday. 

July 25, 2017

Very early this morning we heard the note of the wood thrush, on awaking, though this was a poor singer. I was glad to find that this prince of singers was so common in the wilderness. . . . 

The shores of this lake are rocky, rarely sandy, and we saw no good places for moose to come out on, i. e. no meadows. What P. called Caucomgomoc Mountain, with a double top, was seen north over the lake in mid-forenoon. Approaching the shore, we scared up some young dippers with the old bird. Like the shecorways, they ran over the water very fast. 

Landing on the east side, four or five miles north of Kineo, I noticed roses (R. nitida) in bloom, and, as usual, an abundance of rue (Thalictrum Cornuti) along the shore. The wood there was arbor-vitae, spruce, fir, white pine, etc. The ground and rotting trunks, as usual, covered with mosses, some strange kinds, — various wild feather and leaf-like mosses, of rank growth, that were new or rare to me, — and an abundance of Clintonia borealis. . . . 

The Indian started off first with the canoe and was soon out of sight, going much faster than an ordinary walk. We could see him a mile or more ahead, when his canoe against the sky on the height of land between Moosehead and the Penobscot was all that was to be seen about him. . . . 

Here, among others, were the Aster Radula, just in bloom ; large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), in fruit. The great purple orchis (Platanthera fimbriata), very splendid and perfect ones close to the rails. I was surprised to see it in bloom so late. Vaccinium Canadense; Dalibarda repens, still in bloom; Pyrola secunda, out of bloom; Oxalis Acetosella, still occasionally in flower; Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium), out of bloom; Kalmia glauca, etc., etc., close to the track. 

A cousin of mine and his son met with a large male moose on this carry two years ago, standing within a few rods of them, and at first mistook him for an ox. They both fired at him, but to no purpose. 

As we were returning over the track where I had passed but a few moments before, we started a partridge with her young partly from beneath the wooden rails. While the young hastened away, she sat within seven feet of us and plumed herself, perfectly fearless, without making a noise or ruffling her feathers as they do in our neighborhood, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to observe whether she flew as quietly as other birds when not alarmed. We observed her till we were tired, and when we compelled her to get out of our way, though she took to wing as easily as if we had not been there and went only two or three rods, into a tree, she flew with a considerable whir, as if this were unavoidable in a rapid motion of the wings. . . . 

Here was a canoe on the stocks, in an earlier stage of its manufacture than I had seen before, and I noticed it particularly. The St. Francis Indian was paring down the long cedar strips, or lining, with his crooked knife. As near as I could see, and understand him and Polis, they first lay the bark flat on the ground, outside up, and two of the top rails, the inside and thickest ones, already connected with cross-bars, upon it, in order to get the form; and, with logs and rocks to keep the bark in place, they bend up the birch, cutting down slits in the edges from within three feet of the ends and perpendicularly on all sides about the rails, making a square corner at the ground; and a row of stakes three feet high is then driven into the ground all around, to hold the bark up in its place. 

They next lift the frame, i. e. two rails connected by cross-bars, to the proper height, and sew the bark strongly to the rails with spruce roots every six inches, the thread passing around the rail and also through the ends of the cross bars, and sew on strips of bark to protect the sides in the middle. The canoe is as yet carried out square down at the ends . . . and is perfectly flat on the bottom. (This canoe had advanced thus far.) 

Then, as near as I could learn, they shape the ends (?), put in all the lining of long thin strips, so shaped and shaved as just to fit, and fill up the bark, pressing it out and shaping the canoe. Then they put in the ribs and put on the outer or thinnest rail over the edge of the bark. . . . 

Our path up the bank here led by a large dead white pine, in whose trunk near the ground were great square-cornered holes made by the woodpeckers, probably the red-headed. They were seven or eight inches long by four wide and reached to the heart of the tree through an inch or more of sound wood, and looked like great mortise-holes whose corners had been somewhat worn and rounded by a loose tenon. The tree for some distance was quite honeycombed by them. It suggested woodpeckers on a larger scale than ours, as were the trees and the forest. . . . 

Returning, we found the tree cranberry in one place still in bloom. The stream here ran very swiftly and was hard to paddle against.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 25, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("The weather seemed to be more settled this morning, and we set out early in order to finish our voyage up the lake before the wind arose. . . .We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes east ward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping up the eastern side of the lake. . . .We then crossed another broad bay, which, as we could no longer observe the shore particularly, afforded ample time for conversation. . . .The course we took over this lake, and others afterward, was rarely direct, but a succession of curves from point to point, digressing considerably into each of the bays . . .We were obliged to go over this carry twice, our load was so great. But the carries were an agreeable variety, and we improved the opportunity to gather the rare plants which we had seen, when we returned empty handed.. We reached the Penobscot about four o'clock, and found there some St. Francis Indians encamped on the bank, in the same place where I camped with four Indians four years before. They were making a canoe, and, as then, drying moose-meat. . . ..Having reloaded, we paddled down the Penobscot, which, as the Indian remarked, and even I detected, remembering how it looked before, was uncommonly full. . . . When we had gone about three miles down the Penobscot, we saw through the tree-tops a thunder shower coming up in the west, and we looked out a camping-place in good season, about five o'clock, on the west side,. . .The Indian made a little smothered fire of damp leaves close to the back of the camp, that the smoke might drive through and keep out the mosquitoes; but just before we fell asleep this suddenly blazed up, and came near setting fire to the tent. We were considerably molested by mosquitoes at this camp.")

Very early this morning we heard the note of the wood thrush, on awaking . . .As we were returning . . . we started a partridge with her young . . . See July 25, 1854 ("Hear a wood thrush. I now start some packs of partridges, old and young, going off together without mewing."); July 25, 1852 ("In the meanwhile the wood thrush and the jay and the robin sing around me here, and birds are heard singing from the midst of the fog. ")