THE PONDS. 
199 
in the year its water is as cold as it is pure at all times; 
and I think that it is then as good as any, if not the 
best, in the town. In the winter, all water which is 
exposed to the air is colder than springs and wells 
which are protected from it. The temperature of the 
pond water which had stood in the room where I sat 
from five o’clock in the afternoon till noon the next day, 
the sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer having been 
up to 65° or 70° some of the time, owing partly to the 
sun on the roof, was 42°, or one degree colder than 
the water of one of the coldest wells in the village just 
drawn. The temperature of the Boiling Spring the 
same day was 45°, or the warmest of any water tried, 
though it is the coldest that I know of in summer, when, 
beside, shallow and stagnant surface water is not min¬ 
gled with it. Moreover, in summer, Walden never be¬ 
comes so warm as most water which is exposed to the 
sun, on account of its depth. In the warmest weather 
I usually placed a pailful in my cellar, where it became 
cool in the night, and remained so during the day; 
though I also resorted to a spring in the neighborhood. 
It was as good when a week old as the day it was 
dipped, and had no taste of the pump. Whoever camps 
for a week in summer by the shore of a pond, needs 
only bury a pail of water a few feet deep in the shade 
of his camp to be independent on the luxury of ice. 
There have been caught in Walden, pickerel, one 
weighing seven pounds, to say nothing of another which 
carried off a reel with great velocity, which the fisher¬ 
man safely set down at eight pounds because he did not 
see him, perch and pouts, some of each weighing over 
two pounds, shiners, chivins or roach, (Leuciscuspulchel- 
lus,) a very few breams, and a couple of eels, one weigh- 
