206 A RIVER VIEW. 



Large fields from above, where the men were at 

 work but a day or two since, come down ; there is 

 their pond yet clearly denned and full of marked 

 ice ; yonder is a section of their canal partly filled 

 with the square blocks on their way to the elevators ; 

 a piece of a race-course, or a part of a road where 

 teams crossed, comes drifting by. The people up 

 above have written their winter pleasure and occupa- 

 tions upon this page, and we read the signs as the 

 tide bears it slowly past. Some calm, bright days 

 the scattered and diminished masses glide by, like 

 white clouds across an April sky. 



At other times, when the water is black and still, 

 the river looks like a strip of the firmament at night, 

 dotted with stars and moons in the shape of little and 

 big fragments of ice. One day I remember there 

 came gliding into my vision a great irregular hemi- 

 sphere of ice, that vividly suggested the half moon 

 under the telescope ; its white uneven surface, pitted 

 and cracked, the jagged inner line, the outward 

 curve, but little broken, and the blue-black surface 

 upon which it lay all recalled the scenery of the 

 midnight skies. It is only in exceptionally calm 

 weather that the ice collects in these vast masses, 

 leaving broad expanses of water perfectly clear. 

 Sometimes, during such weather, it drifts by in forms 

 that suggest the great continents, as they appear upon 

 the map, surrounded by the oceans, all their capes 

 and peninsulas, and isthmuses and gulfs, and inland 

 lakes and seas, vividly reproduced. 



