186 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



stream again, as if sure of escape in that direction. 

 Thus they race up and down, the sport of the ebb 

 and flow ; but the ebb wins each time by some dis- 

 tance. Large fields from above, where the men 

 were at work but a day or two since, come down; 

 there is their pond yet clearly defined 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 occupations upon this page, and we 

 read the signs as the tide bears it slowly past. 

 Some calm, bright days the scattered and dimin- 

 ished 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 remem- 

 ber, there came gliding into my vision a great irreg- 

 ular hemisphere 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 excep- 

 tionally calm weather that the ice collects in these 

 vast masses, leaving broad expanses of water per- 

 fectly clear. Sometimes, during such weather, it 

 drifts by in forms that suggest the great continents, 



