159 2 



will this phenomenon avail to guide the traveller? 

 How soon do they become erect? A natural com- 

 pass. How few civilized men probably have ever 

 made this observation, so important to the savage! 

 How much may there have been known to his wood- 

 craft which has not been detected by science! At 

 first I remarked the shoots of a distinct yellowish 

 green, contrasting with the rest of the tree, then that 

 they were not upright but bent more or less, and next 

 that they were all inclined one way, as if bent by 

 the wind, and finally that they were all bent east, 

 without regard to the wind. ^ 



Journal, iv, 136, 137. 



1 In his journal entry for the next day, describing a trip to White 

 Pond, Thoreau frankly but sadly remarks: "I am disappointed to no- 

 tice to-day that most of the pine-tops incline to the west, as if the wind 

 had to do with it." 



