i: 2 ] 



SAND FOLIAGE 



Few phenomena gave me more delight than to 

 observe the forms which thawing sand and clay as- 

 sume in flowing down the sides of a deep cut ^ on the 

 railroad through which I passed on my way to the 

 village, a phenomenon not very common on so large 

 a scale, though the number of freshly exposed banks 

 of the right material must have been greatly multi- 

 plied since railroads were invented. The material 

 was sand of every degree of fineness and of various 

 rich colors, commonly mixed with a little clay. When 

 the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a 

 thawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow 

 down the slopes like lava, sometimes bursting out 

 through the snow and overflowing it where no sand 

 was to be seen before. Innumerable little streams 

 overlap and interlace one with another, exhibiting a 

 sort of hybrid product, which obeys half way the 

 law of currents, and half way that of vegetation. . . . 

 It is truly a grotesque vegetation, whose forms and 

 color we see imitated in bronze, a sort of architec- 

 tural foliage more ancient and typical than acanthus, 

 chiccory, ivy, vine, or any vegetable leaves. 



Walden, 336, 337. 



1 The "Deep Cut" was despoiled of its magnitude some years ago, a 

 large section of its easterly bank being removed for grading purposes 

 elsewhere. SuflBcient of the original sand-and-clay formation still remains, 

 however, to furnish annually the same unique phenomenon in which 

 Thoreau delighted. H. W. G. 



