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

Tuckerman's Ravine

July 9. 

Friday. Walked to the Hermit Lake, some forty rods northeast. 

Listera cordata abundant and in prime in the woods, with a little Platanthera obtusata, also apparently in prime. (The last also as far up as the head of the ravine sparingly.) 

This was a cold, clear lake with scarcely a plant in it, of perhaps half an acre, and from a low ridge east of it was a fine view up the ravine. Hoar tried in vain for trout here. 

The Vaccinium Canadense was the  prevailing one here and by our camp.

Heard a bullfrog in the lake, and afterward saw a large toad part way up the ravine. Our camp was about on the limit of trees here, and may have been from twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet below the summit. 

I was here surprised to discover, looking down through the fir-tops, a large, bright, downy fair-weather cloud covering the lower world far beneath us, and there it was the greater part of the time we were there, like a lake, while the snow and alpine summit were to be seen above us on the other side, at about the same angle. The pure white crescent of snow was our sky, and the dark mountainside above, our permanent cloud. 

We had the Fringilla hyemalis with its usual note about our camp, and Wentworth said it was common and bred about his house. I afterward saw it in the valleys about the mountains. I had seen the white throated sparrow near his house. This also, he said, commonly bred there, on the ground. 

The wood we were in was fir and spruce. 

Along the brook grew the Alnus viridis, Salix Torreyana (?), canoe birch, red cherry, mountain-ash, etc., and prominent among lesser plants, Heracleum lanatum, Castilleja septentrionalis, the swamp gooseberry in flower and in green fruit, and a sort of Ribes floridum without resinous-dotted leaves! The Hedyotis coerulea was surprisingly large and fresh, in bloom, looking as much whiter than usual as late snows do. I thought they must be a variety. And on a sand-bar by the brook, Oxyria digyna, the very pretty mountain sorrel, apparently in prime.

Apparently Viola blanda, as well as wool-grass, in the meadow, and apparently Aster prenanthes and Juncus filiformis; also rhodora, fetid currant, amelanchier (variety oligocarpa), trientalis, mountain maple, tree-cranberry with green fruit, Aster acuminatus, and Aralia nudicaulis a salix humilis-like, and Polystichum aculeatum (??), and Lycopodium annotinum (variety).

I ascended the stream in the afternoon and got out of the ravine at its head, after dining on chiogenes tea, which plant I could gather without moving from my log seat. We liked it so well that Blake gathered a parcel to carry home. In most places it was scarcely practicable to get out of the ravine on either side on account of precipices. I judged it to be one thousand or fifteen hundred feet deep, but with care you could ascend by some slides. I found that we might have camped in the scrub firs above the edge of the ravine, though it would have been cold and windy and comparatively unpleasant there, for we should have been most of the time in a cloud. 

The dense patches of dwarf fir and spruce scarcely rose above the rocks which they concealed, and you would often think the trees not more than a foot or two deep, — as, indeed, they might not be generally, — but, searching within, you would find hollow places six or eight feet deep between the rocks, where they filled up all level, and by clearing a space here with your hatchet you could find a shelter for your tent, and also fuel, and water was close by above the head of the ravine.

Nevertheless, at a glance, looking over, or even walking over, this dense shrubbery, you would have thought it nowhere more than a foot or two deep, and the trees at most only an inch or two in diameter; but by searching you would find deep hollow places in it, as I have said, where the firs were from six to ten inches in diameter. The strong wind and the snow are said to flatten these trees down thus. Such a shrubbery would begin with a thin and shallow but dense edge of spruce, not more than a foot thick, like moss upon a rock, on which you could walk, but in many places in the middle of it, though its surface was of a uniform slope, it would be found to be six or eight feet deep. So that these very thickets of which the traveller complains afford at the same time an indispensable shelter. I noticed that this shrubbery just above the ravine, as well as in it, was principally fir, while the yet more dwarfish and prostrate portion on the edge was spruce. 

Returning, I sprained my ankle in jumping down the brook, so that I could not sleep that night, nor walk the next day. 

We had commonly clouds above and below us, though it was clear where we were. These clouds commonly reached about down to the edge of the ravine. 

The black flies, which pestered us till into evening, were of various sizes, the largest more than an eighth of an inch long. There were scarcely any mosquitoes here, it was so cool.

A small owl came in the evening and sat within twelve feet of us, turning its head this way and that and peering at us inquisitively. It was apparently a screech owl. [Or Acadica ?? Saw-whet?]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1858

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

Tuckerman's ravine –

dense patches of fir and spruce

flattened by the wind.

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

I think I see how this tree is propagated.

July 9. 

July 9, 2017

Could see no yellow wasps about the nest over my window at 6 a. m., but did just before 6.30.  I hear of still a second nest at Mrs. Brown's and one at Julius Smith's. 

Another Attacus Promethea, a male from the same young black birch, was out and on the window this morning. Q. v. I dipped the body into alcohol before it had fairly spread its wings, but so discolored it, i. e. the white line with dots on the side of the abdomen. 

I see that the seeds of the Salix nigra gathered on the catkins on the 7th, or two days since, put in tumblers of water in my window, have already germinated ! and show those two little roundish green leaves. 

P. M. — Up Assabet with Sophia. 

There is now but little black willow down left on the trees. They will be handsomest somewhat later than this, when there is no down on them, and the new growth has more invested the stems. 

I think I see how this tree is propagated by its seeds. Its countless minute brown seeds, just perceptible to the naked eye in the midst of their cotton, are wafted with the cotton to the water, — most abundantly about a fortnight ago, — and there they drift and form a thick white scum together with other matter, especially against some alder or other fallen or drooping shrub where there is less current than usual. There, within two or three days, a great many germinate and show their two little roundish leaves, more or less tingeing with green the surface of the scum, — somewhat like grass seed in a tumbler of cotton. 

Many of these are drifted in amid the button-bushes, willows, and other shrubs, and the sedge, along the riverside, and the water falling just at this time, when they have put forth little fibres, they are deposited on the mud just left bare in the shade, and thus probably a great many of them have a chance to become perfect plants. But if they do not drift into sufficiently shallow water and are not left on the mud just at the right time, probably they perish. 

The mud in many such places is now green with them, though perhaps the seed has often blown directly through the air to such places. 

I am surprised to see dense groves of young maples an inch or more high from seed of this year. They have sprung in pure sand, where the seed has been drifted and moisture enough supplied at the water's edge. The seed (now effete) commonly lies on the surface, having sent down its rootlet into the sand. 

I see no flowers on the bass trees by this river this year, nor at Conantum. 

Am surprised to find how much carburetted hydrogen gas there is in the beds of sawdust by the side of this stream, as at the "Narrows." If I thrust in my paddle and give it a twist, great bubbles two inches or more in diameter rush up with great force and sound, lifting the water an inch or two, as if it were violently boiling, and filling the air with that strong gunpowder scent. 

The bubbles, being lighter than atmospheric air, burst at once, and give me no opportunity to see myself in them, as those which the boat makes in sluggish water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1857

See no yellow wasps about the nest over my window. . . See June 28, 1857 ("under the peak of our roof, just over my chamber windows.”)

Another Attacus Promethea, a male from the same young black birch, was out and on the window. See  July 5, 1857 ("There came out this morning, apparently from one of those hard stem-wound cocoons on a black birch in my window, a moth whose wings are spread four and a quarter inches")

I think I see how this tree is propagated by its seeds. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow.

I see no flowers on the bass trees by this river this year . . . See. July 3, 1853 (" There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year") and note to July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

The beds of sawdust by the side of the stream. . . . See  April 12, 1852 ("The lines of sawdust left at different levels on the shore is just hint enough of a sawmill on the stream above. “); April 1, 1854 ("The lines of sawdust from Barrett's mill at different heights on the steep, wet bank under the hemlocks rather enhance the impression of freshness and wild-ness, as if it were a new country.”); April 19, 1854 ("Yesterday, as I was returning down the Assabet, . . . I was surprised to find the river so full of sawdust from the pail-factory and Barrett's mill that I could not easily distinguish if the stone-heaps had been repaired. There was not a square three inches clear. And I saw the sawdust deposited by an eddy in one place on the bottom like a sand-bank a foot or more deep half a mile below the mill.”);  October 20, 1856 (“ at Hemlocks, in the eddy there, where the white bits of sawdust keep boiling up and down and whirling round as in a pot.”):  April 1, 1858 ("It is remarkable that the river seems rarely to rise or fall gradually, but rather by fits and starts, and hence the water-lines, as indicated now by the sawdust, are very distinct parallel lines four or five or more inches apart.”);  April 1, 1859 ("The river being so low, we see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks. . .”);  July 7, 1859 ("Bathing at Barrett's Bay, I find it to be composed in good part of sawdust, mixed with sand.”)

The bubbles, being lighter than atmospheric air, burst at once . . .  See  July 14, 1857 ("Set fire to the carburetted hydrogen from the sawdust shoal with matches, and heard it flash. “);  Compare June 3, 1854 (“On the pond we make bubbles with our paddles on the smooth surface, in which little hemispherical cases we see ourselves and boat, small, black and distinct, with a fainter reflection on the opposite side of the bubble (head to head). These last sometimes a minute before they burst.”); September 14, 1854("Now our oars leave a broad wake of large bubbles, which are slow to burst.”); June 7, 1857 (“Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake, as if it were more sluggish or had more viscidity than earlier. Far behind me they rest without bursting.”)

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



I take a chainsaw into the woods and cut logs that have fallen across the trail. One is a leaner and my saw gets stuck. i leave it hanging, walk back for a hand saw take the chain saw apart then free the chain. The saw does not want to fit back together. Maybe because it is hot. I clear a dozen or so logs and also limb the large beech that fell across the stream in Little Valley. A productive afternoon. At sunset at the view we see ravens soaring in front of us then directly overhead. First one, then two, then four!

In the sunset sky
ravens float on wind and wing
playing in the air.

zphx 20170709

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 Book of the Seasons: July 9 (Bathing, the kingbird, the basswood and willow, unexplored horizons)

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

July 9

The placid waters

seen as a lake but known as

a noble river.

The fair still waters

suggest eternal peace and

beauty whence it flows

tempting beholders

at once to explore it and

their own destiny.

July 9, 1851

The jay's note resounds

along a raw wood-side with

singular wildness.

July 9, 1852

The  furnace-like heat

produces a thickness in 

the near horizon. 

July 9, 1852

Now with a clear sky

the distant horizon is

a narrow blue line.

July 9, 1855

Busy hummingbird

unmindful of the shower

struck by a big drop.

July 9, 1860

Now, with a clear sky and bright weather, we see many dark streaks and patches where the surface of the ocean is rippled by fishes, mostly menhaden, far and wide, in countless myriads, such the populousness of the sea. July 9, 1855

The distant horizon a narrow blue line from distance like mountains. July 9, 1855

The heat to-day (as yesterday) is furnace-like. It produces a thickness almost amounting to vapor in the near horizon. July 9, 1852

Bathing is an undescribed luxury. July 9, 1852

To feel the wind blow on your body, the water flow on you and lave you, is a rare physical enjoyment this hot day. July 9, 1852

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. July 9, 1851

Saw there also the Cucubalus Behen, or bladder campion, July 9, 1851

Also the autumnal dandelion (Apargia autumnalis). July 9, 1851

These blueberries on Fair Haven have a very innocent, ambrosial taste, as if made of the ether itself, as they plainly are colored with it. July 9, 1852

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. July 9, 1851

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? July 9, 1851

Am surprised to find how much carburetted hydrogen gas there is in the beds of sawdust by the side of this stream, as at the "Narrows." I July 9, 1857

The bubbles, being lighter than atmospheric air, burst at once, and give me no opportunity to see myself in them, as those which the boat makes in sluggish water. July 9, 1857

We are accustomed to refer changes in the shore and the channel to the very gradual influence of the current washing away and depositing matter which was held in suspension, but certainly in many parts of our river the ice which moves these masses of bushes and meadow is a much more important agent. It will alter the map of the river in one year. July 9, 1859

Examine a lanceolate thistle which has been pressed and laid by a year. The papers being taken off, its head springs up more than an inch and the downy seeds begin to fly off. July 9, 1854

I see that the seeds of the Salix nigra gathered on the catkins on the 7th, or two days since, put in tumblers of water in my window, have already germinated ! and show those two little roundish green leaves. July 9, 1857

There is now but little black willow down left on the trees. July 9, 1857

I think I see how this tree is propagated by its seeds. Its countless minute brown seeds, just perceptible to the naked eye in the midst of their cotton, are wafted with the cotton to the water, — most abundantly about a fortnight ago, — and there they drift and form a thick white scum together with other matter, especially against some alder or other fallen or drooping shrub where there is less current than usual. There, within two or three days, a great many germinate and show their two little roundish leaves, more or less tingeing with green the surface of the scum, — somewhat like grass seed in a tumbler of cotton. July 9, 1857

Many of these are drifted in amid the button-bushes, willows, and other shrubs, and the sedge, along the riverside, and the water falling just at this time, when they have put forth little fibres, they are deposited on the mud just left bare in the shade, and thus probably a great many of them have a chance to become perfect plants. July 9, 1857

The mud in many such places is now green with them, though perhaps the seed has often blown directly through the air to such places. July 9, 1857

I am surprised to see dense groves of young maples an inch or more high from seed of this year. July 9, 1857

I see no flowers on the bass trees by this river this year, nor at Conantum. July 9, 1857

Could see no yellow wasps about the nest over my window at 6 a. m., but did just before 6.30. I hear of still a second nest at Mrs. Brown's and one at Julius Smith's. July 9, 1857

Another Attacus Promethea, a male from the same young black birch, was out and on the window this morning. July 9, 1857

Vessels of porcelain of Chinese manufacture have of late been repeatedly found in the catacombs of Thebes, in Egypt,. . and in three instances record the following legend:

                "The flower opens, and lo! another year."

There is something sublime in the fact that some of the oldest written sentences should thus celebrate the coming in of spring. July 9, 1852

The birds all unite to make the morning quire; sing rather faintly, not prolonging their strains. The crickets appear to have received a reinforcement during the sultry night. July 9, 1852

I do not often hear the bluebird now except at dawn. July 9, 1852

I hear the chickadee's two wiry notes. July 9, 1852

The jay's note, resounding along a raw wood-side, suggests a singular wildness. July 9, 1852

I hear many scarlet tanagers, the first I have seen this season. July 9, 1852

A bobolink. July 9, 1852

See two handsome rose-breasted grosbeaks on the Corner causeway. . . .. By form, note, and color, both remind me of some of those foreign birds with great bills in cages. July 9, 1860

There is a smart shower at 5 p. m., and in the midst of it a hummingbird is busy about the flowers in the garden, unmindful of it, though you would think that each big drop that struck him would be a serious accident. July 9, 1860

See young kingbirds which have lately flown perched in a family on the willows,
--- the airy bird, lively, twittering. July 9, 1859

One is glad to hear that the naked eye still retains some importance in the estimation of astronomers. July 9, 1851

It is refreshing to see the surface of Fair Haven rippled with wind. July 9, 1852

The waves break here quite as on the seashore. July 9, 1852

Methinks we have had no clear winter skies — no skies the color of a robin's egg, and pure amber around — for some months. July 9, 1852

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: 

The Luxury of Bathing

the Eastern Kingbird

 the Propogation of the Willow.

The Basswood

Bathing is an undescribed luxury. See July 3, 1854 ("What a luxury to bathe now! It is gloriously hot, — the first of this weather. I cannot get wet enough. I must let the water soak into me. I begin to inhabit the planet, and see how I may be naturalized at last.”)  

See young kingbirds which have lately flown perched in a family on the willows, — the airy bird, lively, twittering. See July 5, 1856 ("A kingbird’s nest in fork of a button-bush five feet high on shore (not saddled on); three young just hatched and one egg."); August 6, 1858 ("If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast.") 

The ice which moves these masses of bushes and meadow is a much more important agent. It will alter the map of the river in one year. See February 28, 1855 ("This is a powerful agent at work.”); June 22, 1859 ("One who is not almost daily on the river will not perceive the revolution constantly going on.”)

Examine a lanceolate thistle -- its head springs up more than an inch and the downy seeds begin to fly off. See September 1, 1852 ("Nothing can stay the thistle-down, but with September winds it unfailingly sets sail. The irresistible revolution of time."); September 29, 1858 ("What astronomer can calculate the orbit of my thistle-down and tell where it will deposit its precious freight at last? It may still be travelling when I am sleeping"); See lso September 4, 1859 ("Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp"); August 3, 1856 ("Cirsium lanceolatum at Lee's Cliff, apparently some days. Its leaves are long-pointed and a much darker green than those of the pasture thistle")

See no yellow wasps about the nest over my window. .See June 28, 1857 ("under the peak of our roof, just over my chamber windows.”)

Another Attacus Promethea, a male from the same young black birch, was out and on the window. See July 5, 1857 ("There came out this morning, apparently from one of those hard stem-wound cocoons on a black birch in my window, a moth whose wings are spread four and a quarter inches") 

I see no flowers on the bass trees by this river this year. See July 3, 1853 ("There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year") and note to July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.”) 

The beds of sawdust by the side of the stream. See April 12, 1852 ("The lines of sawdust left at different levels on the shore is just hint enough of a sawmill on the stream above. “); April 1, 1854 ("The lines of sawdust from Barrett's mill at different heights on the steep, wet bank under the hemlocks rather enhance the impression of freshness and wild-ness, as if it were a new country.”); April 19, 1854 ("Yesterday, as I was returning down the Assabet, . . . I was surprised to find the river so full of sawdust from the pail-factory and Barrett's mill that I could not easily distinguish if the stone-heaps had been repaired. There was not a square three inches clear. And I saw the sawdust deposited by an eddy in one place on the bottom like a sand-bank a foot or more deep half a mile below the mill.”); October 20, 1856 (“ at Hemlocks, in the eddy there, where the white bits of sawdust keep boiling up and down and whirling round as in a pot.”): April 1, 1858 ("It is remarkable that the river seems rarely to rise or fall gradually, but rather by fits and starts, and hence the water-lines, as indicated now by the sawdust, are very distinct parallel lines four or five or more inches apart.”); April 1, 1859 ("The river being so low, we see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks. . .”); July 7, 1859 ("Bathing at Barrett's Bay, I find it to be composed in good part of sawdust, mixed with sand.”)

The bubbles, being lighter than atmospheric air, burst at once. See July 14, 1857 ("Set fire to the carburetted hydrogen from the sawdust shoal with matches, and heard it flash. “); Compare June 3, 1854 (“On the pond we make bubbles with our paddles on the smooth surface, in which little hemispherical cases we see ourselves and boat, small, black and distinct, with a fainter reflection on the opposite side of the bubble (head to head). These last sometimes a minute before they burst.”); September 14, 1854("Now our oars leave a broad wake of large bubbles, which are slow to burst.”); June 7, 1857 (“Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake, as if it were more sluggish or had more viscidity than earlier. Far behind me they rest without bursting.”)

What can be more impressive than to look up a noble river just at evening, – one, perchance, which you have never explored.  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, 2018

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853  

July 8 <<<<< July 9  >>>>> July 10

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 ©  2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/HDT09JULY

The distant horizon a narrow blue line

July 9

Now, with a clear sky and bright weather, we see many dark streaks and patches where the surface of the ocean is rippled by fishes, mostly menhaden, far and wide, in countless myriads, such the populousness of the sea.

Occasionally, when near, can see their shining sides appear —and the mackerel gulls dive. Also see bass, whiting, cod, etc., turn up their bellies, near the shore. 

The distant horizon a narrow blue line from distance like mountains. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal , July 9, 1855

The ocean is rippled by fishes, mostly menhaden, far and wide, in countless myriads. See November 9, 1858 ("I looked through my glass and could plainly see the dimples made by a school of little fishes . . . exactly analogous to the dark rippled patches on the sea made by the menhaden as seen from Cape Cod . . . In this respect, also, Walden is a small ocean.")

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

Now with a clear sky

the distant horizon is

a narrow blue line.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The distant horizon

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550709

The persistent thistle

July 9. 

Examine a lanceolate thistle which has been pressed and laid by a year. The papers being taken off, its head springs up more than an inch and the downy seeds begin to fly off.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1854

Examine a lanceolate thistle -- its head springs up more than an inch and the downy seeds begin to fly off. See September 1, 1852 ("Nothing can stay the thistle-down, but with September winds it unfailingly sets sail. The irresistible revolution of time."); September 29, 1858 ("What astronomer can calculate the orbit of my thistle-down and tell where it will deposit its precious freight at last? It may still be travelling when I am sleeping");  See lso September 4, 1859 ("Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp"); August 3, 1856 ("Cirsium lanceolatum at Lee's Cliff, apparently some days. Its leaves are long-pointed and a much darker green than those of the pasture thistle")

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

The flower opens, and lo! another year.

July 9. 

Friday. 4 a.m. — To Cliffs. 

No dew; no dewy cobwebs. The sky looks mist-like, not clear blue. An aurora fading into a general saffron color. At length the redness travels over, partly from east to west, before sunrise, and there is little color in the east. 

The birds all unite to make the morning quire; sing rather faintly, not prolonging their strains. The crickets appear to have received a reinforcement during the sultry night. 

There is no name for the evening red corresponding to aurora. It is the blushing foam about the prow of the sun's boat, and at eve the same in its wake. 

I do not often hear the bluebird now except at dawn. 

Methinks we have had no clear winter skies — no skies the color of a robin's egg, and pure amber around — for some months. 

These blueberries on Fair Haven have a very innocent, ambrosial taste, as if made of the ether itself, as they plainly are colored with it.

I hear the chickadee's two wiry notes. 

The jay's note, resounding along a raw wood-side, suggests a singular wildness. 

I hear many scarlet tanagers, the first I have seen this season, which some might mistake for a red-eye. A hoarse, rough strain, comparatively, but more easily caught owing to its simplicity and sameness; something like heer chip-er-way-heer chory chay.

A bobolink.


Morton, in his "Crania Americana," says, referring to Wilkinson as his authority, that "vessels of porcelain of Chinese manufacture have of late been repeatedly found in the catacombs of Thebes, in Egypt," some as old as the Pharaonic period, and the inscriptions on them "have been read with ease by Chinese scholars, and in three instances record the following legend: 

"The flower opens, and lo! another year." 

There is something sublime in the fact that some of the oldest written sentences should thus celebrate the coming in of spring. How many times have the flowers opened and a new year begun! Hardly a more cheering sentence could have come down to us. How old is spring, a phenomenon still so fresh! Do we perceive any decay in Nature?  How much evidence is contained in this short and simple sentence respecting the former inhabitants of this globe! It is a sentence to be inscribed on vessels of porcelain. Suggesting that so many years had gone before.  An observation as fit then as now.

The heat to-day (as yesterday) is furnace-like. It produces a thickness almost amounting to vapor in the near horizon. How intense and suffocating the heat under some sunny wood-sides where no breeze circulates!  The railroad men cannot work in the Deep Cut, but have come out on to the causeway, where there is a circulation of air. They tell with a shudder of the heat reflected from the rails. 

Yet a breezy wind, as it were born of the heat, rustles all leaves.  It is refreshing to see the surface of Fair Haven rippled with wind. The waves break here quite as on the seashore. To feel the wind blow on your body, the water flow you and lave you, is a rare physical enjoyment this hot day. Bathing is an undescribed luxury.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1852

Morton referring to Wilkinson. See John Gardner Wilkinson, A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians. [Revised and abridged from Manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians] (1854) ("One side presents a flower, and the other an inscription, containing, according to Sir J. Davis (in three out of eight he examined), the following legend: — “The flower opens, and lo! another year; ” and another has been translated by Mr. Thoms: — “During the shining of the moon the fir-tree sends forth its sap,” ( which in a thousand years becomes amber. )")

Bathing is an undescribed luxury. To feel the wind blow on your body, the water flow on you and lave you, is a rare physical enjoyment this hot day. The water is remarkably warm here, especially in the shal lows, — warm to the hand, like that which has stood long in a kettle over a fire. The pond water being so warm made the water of the brook feel very cold; and this kept close on the bottom of the pond for a good many rods about the mouth of the brook, as I could feel with my feet; and when I thrust my arm down where it was only two feet deep, my arm was in the warm water of the pond, but my hand in the cold water of the brook. See July 3, 1854 ("What a luxury to bathe now! It is gloriously hot, — the first of this weather. I cannot get wet enough. I must let the water soak into me. I begin to inhabit the planet, and see how I may be naturalized at last.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

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 hummingbird and a summer shower

July 9. 

Clears up at noon. See two handsome rose-breasted grosbeaks on the Corner causeway. One utters a peculiar squeaking or snapping note. By form, note, and color, both remind me of some of those foreign birds with great bills in cages. 

There is a smart shower at 5 p. m., and in the midst of it a hummingbird is busy about the flowers in the garden, unmindful of it, though you would think that each big drop that struck him would be a serious accident.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1860

You would think each big drop that struck him would be a serious accident. See May 29, 1857 ("the little fellow suddenly perches on an ash twig within a rod of me, and plumes himself while the rain is fairly beginning.”)

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

It will alter the map of the river in one year.

July 9. 

Paddle up river and sound a little above Fair Haven Pond. 

See young kingbirds which have lately flown perched in a family on the willows,
--- the airy bird, lively, twittering.


The water having gone down, I notice a broad red base to the bayonet rush, apparently the effect of the water, even as the maples (of both kinds) and the polygonums are reddened. The bayonet rush is not quite out. 

I see, at length, where the floated meadow (on Hubbard's meadow) came from last spring, — from opposite Bittern Cliff, and some below. There is a pond created in the meadow there, some five rods by four and three to three and a half feet deep, water being eleven and a half inches above summer level, — a regular oval pond, where nothing rises above water, but I see pontederia grass-like leafets springing up all over the bottom. The piece taken out here probably contained no button-bushes. So much of the meadow which has been moved [?] is thus converted into a pool. 

Close by, south, are still larger scars, where masses of button-bush thicket have been ripped up. No doubt some of those on Hubbard's meadow came from here. The water where they stood is about the same depth as in the other place. 

I see a piece of floated button-bush on the south side of Fair Haven Pond, west of the old boat place of Baker Shore, which is twelve rods long by one rod wide, and, in two or three pieces [sic] where it is several thicknesses, it is full three feet thick of solid earth. The whole is set in a straight line separating the meadow in the rear from the pond, forming, in fact, just such a brink there as exists in perfection on the west side of the pond. 

This might be called brink-bush, or drift-bush, river-fence. It is the floating fencing-stuff of the river. Possibly that (in the spring) island south of the mouth of Well Meadow Brook, and even the large island in the pond, had its beginning thus, not only willows but maples and alders having at length sprung up on it and built it up. 

The next day (10th) I see, just above Sherman's Bridge, on the east side, a piece, some eight rods long by one rod wide, arranged as a brink separating a meadow from the river in the same manner, and, a quarter of a mile higher up on the same side, a more or less broken piece which I estimated by my eye to be five rods by twelve, the largest mass or collection of the kind moved together that I ever saw. I have seen six pieces moved last March, or spring, which contained all together more than half an acre. There was more than a quarter of an acre in the last piece alone. 

The button-bush and black willow generally grow together, especially on the brink of the stagnant parts of the river. (Very little comparatively in the great Sudbury meadow and in our Great Meadows.) Perhaps they are there carried off by the ice. They stand generally in line (sometimes half a dozen rods wide) on the brink of the river, separating it from some (commonly narrow) meadow behind, and at high water are a distinct line of separation, rising above the surface and indicating the summer boundary. 


The best example is at Fair Haven Pond, west side. It is often pretty deep water quite up to the bushes, or there are pads, etc., outside them. There they stand in massive and regular straight or curving lines, and you suppose that they have stood there for ages. But I have seen twelve rods together (i. e. in one piece) of such fence, the whole width of it transplanted half a mile to some shore where there was none, and forming a fence to the pond or river there.


We are accustomed to refer changes in the shore and the channel to the very gradual influence of the current washing away and depositing matter which was held in suspension, but certainly in many parts of our river the ice which moves these masses of bushes and meadow is a much more important agent. It will alter the map of the river in one year. 


The whole shore for forty rods on the east side below Bittern Cliff was stripped of its button-bushes and willows, etc., etc., last spring, and as I floated over the river there to-day, I could not at first account for the remarkable breadth of the river there, like a bay. I got a very novel impression of the size of the river, though it is now low water. In fact the width of the river has been increased fully three or four rods for more than forty rods in length, and is three to four feet deep on that side now. 

You cannot tell, of any clump or row of button-bushes, whether it grew up where it stands or was thus set out there. I have seen these masses, sunk in midstream, produce a small weedy spot the same year, and possibly a large mass might thus form an extensive shallow and weedy place or island. 

Potamogetons begin to prevail at five and a half feet in sluggish water (at summer level), though they will still be visible when the water rises higher, rising with it. They appear at four and a half, if more rapid, and are densest at three feet, if the stream is not exceedingly rapid. The kalmiana lily grows to seven and a half feet (summer level) where it is sluggish (and is still atop when it is a foot or two deeper), and you see this, the heart-leaf, utricularia, and potamogeton, all together, in five feet [of] water (also in same place when a foot or two higher). 

The front-rank polygonum grows outside the pontederia, next to the potamogeton, and, near the causeway bridge, in Wayland, reaches (except four or five feet) quite across the river (three feet [of] water). 

We have not only the Assabet uniting with the main stream about in the middle of the township, but three highways thus raying out in different directions, — as great an amount of river within these limits as could well be. Neither stream runs direct through the town. The main stream runs first northerly or northwesterly and then northeasterly, and perhaps this is as convenient for sailing in flat-bottomed boats as any arrangement could be, the prevailing winds being northwest and southwest, but sailing is much affected by hills, woods, etc. 

To-day, July 9th, water is eleven and a half inches above summer level.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 9, 1859

See young kingbirds which have lately flown perched in a family on the willows, — the airy bird, lively, twittering. See July 5, 1856 ("A kingbird’s nest in fork of a button-bush five feet high on shore (not saddled on); three young just hatched and one egg."); August 6, 1858 ("If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Eastern Kingbird

The ice which moves these masses of bushes and meadow is a much more important agent. It will alter the map of the river in one year. See February 28, 1855 ("This is a powerful agent at work.”); June 22, 1859 ("One who is not almost daily on the river will not perceive the revolution constantly going on.”)

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