24 
WALDEN. 
the results of all exploring expeditions, using new pas¬ 
sages and all improvements in navigation; — charts to 
be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and 
buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the loga¬ 
rithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some 
calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should 
have reached a friendly pier, — there is the untold fate 
of La Perouse ; —* universal science to be kept pace 
with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and 
navigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Han- 
no and the Phoenicians down to our day; in fine, ac¬ 
count of stock to be taken from time to time, to know 
how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties of a 
man, — such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of 
tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand 
a universal knowledge. 
I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good 
place for business, not solely on account of the railroad 
and the ice trade; it offers advantages which it may not 
be good policy to divulge; it is a good post and a good 
foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you 
must every where build on piles of your own driving. 
It is said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice 
in the Neva, would sweep St. Petersburg from the face 
of the earth. 
As this business was to be entered into without the 
usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where 
those means,* that will still be indispensable to every 
such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for Clothing, 
to come at once to the practical part of the question, 
perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and 
