306 
WALDEN. 
They possess a quite dazzling and transcendent beauty 
which separates them by a wide interval from the ca¬ 
daverous cod and haddock whose fame is trumpeted in 
our streets. They are not green like the pines, nor gray 
like the stones, nor blue like the sky; but they have, to 
my eyes, if possible, yet rarer colors, like flowers and 
precious stones, as if they were the pearls, the animal- 
ized nuclei or crystals of the Walden water. They, of 
course, are Walden all over and all through; are them¬ 
selves small Waldens in the animal kingdom, Wal- 
denses. It is surprising that they are caught here,— 
that in this deep and capacious spring, far beneath the 
rattling teams and chaises and tinkling sleighs that trav¬ 
el the Walden road, this great gold and emerald fish 
swims. I never chanced to see its kind in any market; 
it would be the cynosure of all eyes there. Easily, with 
a few convulsive quirks, they give up their watery 
ghosts, like a mortal translated before his time to the 
thin air of heaven. 
As I was desirous to recover the long lost bottom of 
Walden Pond, I surveyed it carefully, before the ice 
broke up, early in ’46, with compass and chain and 
sounding line. There have been many stories told 
about the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, 
which certainly had no foundation for themselves. It 
is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottom¬ 
lessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it. 
I have visited two such Bottomless Ponds in one walk 
in this neighborhood. Many have believed that Walden 
reached quite through to the other side of the globe. 
Some who have lain flat on the ice for a long time, look- 
