THE POND IN WINTER. 
313 
it will probably be coldest in summer and warmest in 
winter. When the ice-men were at work here in 
? 46-7, the cakes sent to the shore were one day rejected 
by those who were stacking them up there, not being 
thick enough to lie side by side with the rest; and the 
cutters thus discovered that the ice over a small space 
was two or three inches thinner than elsewhere, which 
made them think that there was an inlet there. They 
also showed me in another place what they thought was 
a “leach hole,” through which the pond leaked out under 
a hill into a neighboring meadow, pushing me out on a 
cake of ice to see it. It was a small cavity under ten 
feet of water ; but I think that I can warrant the pond 
not to need soldering till they find a worse leak than 
that. One has suggested, that if such a “ leach hole ” 
should be found, its connection with the meadow, if any 
existed, might be proved by conveying some colored 
powder or sawdust to the mouth of the hole, and then 
putting a strainer over the spring in the meadow, which 
would catch some of the particles carried through by 
the current. 
While I was surveying, the ice, which was sixteen 
inches thick, undulated under a slight wind like water. 
It is well known that a level cannot be used on ice. At 
one rod from the shore its greatest fluctuation, when 
observed by means of a level on land directed toward 
a graduated staff on the ice, was three quarters of an 
inch, though the ice appeared firmly attached to the 
shore. It was probably greater in the middle. Who 
knows but if our instruments were delicate enough we 
might detect an undulation in the crust of the earth ? 
When two legs of my level were on the shore and the 
third on the ice, and the sights were directed over the 
