196 
WALDEN. 
of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hard¬ 
ly distinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, 
as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo. The orna¬ 
mented grounds of villas which will one day be built 
here may still preserve some trace of this. 
The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or 
not, and within what period, nobody knows, though, as 
usual, many pretend to know. It is commonly higher 
in the winter and lower in the summer, though not cor¬ 
responding to the general wet and dryness. I can re¬ 
member when it was a foot or two lower, and also when 
it was at least five feet higher, than when I lived by it. 
There is a narrow sand-bar running into it, with very 
deep water on one side, on which I helped boil a kettle 
of chowder, some six rods from the main shore, about 
the year 1824, which it has not been possible to do for 
twenty-five years; and on the other hand, my friends 
used to listen with incredulity when I told them, that a 
few years later I was accustomed to fish from a boat in 
a secluded cove in the woods, fifteen rods from the only 
shore they knew, which place was long since converted 
into a meadow. But the pond has risen steadily for 
two years, and now, in the summer of ’52, is just five 
feet higher than when I lived there, or as high as it was 
thirty years ago, and fishing goes on again in the mead¬ 
ow. This makes a difference of level, at the outside, 
of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by the sur¬ 
rounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this over¬ 
flow must be referred to causes which affect the deep 
springs. This same summer the pond has begun to fall 
again. It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether 
periodical or not, appears thus to require many years 
for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a 
