c: 115 :\ 



December 23, 1837. In the side of the high bank 

 by the Leaning Hemlocks, there were some curious 

 crystallizations. Wherever the water, or other 

 causes, had formed a hole in the bank, its throat and 

 outer edge, like the entrance to a citadel of the olden 

 time, bristled with a glistening ice armor. In one 

 place you might see minute ostrich feathers, which 

 seemed the waving plumes of the warriors filing into 

 the fortress, in another the glancing fan-shaped 

 banners of the Lilliputian host, and in another the 

 needle-shaped particles, collected into bundles resem- 

 bling the plumes of the pine, might pass for a pha- 

 lanx of spears. The whole hill was like an immense 

 quartz rock, with minute crystals sparkling from 

 innumerable crannies. I tried to fancy that there 

 was a disposition in these crystallizations to take the 

 forms of the contiguous foliage. 



Journal, i, 21, 22. 



