SPRING. 
The opening of large tracts by the ice-cntters com¬ 
monly causes a pond to break up earlier; for the water, 
agitated by the wind, even in cold weather, wears away 
the surrounding ice. But such was not the effect on 
Walden that year, for she had soon got a thick new gar¬ 
ment to take the place of the old. This pond never 
breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on 
account both of its greater depth and its having no stream 
passing through it to melt or wear away the ice. I never 
knew it to open in the course of a winter, not excepting 
that of ’52-3, which gave the ponds so severe a trial. 
It commonly opens about the first of April, a week or 
ten days later than Flints’ Pond and Fair-Haven, be¬ 
ginning to melt on the north side and in the shallower 
parts where it began to freeze. It indicates better than 
any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the sea¬ 
son, being least affected by transient changes of temper¬ 
ature. A severe cold of a few days’ duration in March 
may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, 
while the temperature of Walden increases almost un¬ 
interruptedly. A thermometer thrust into the middle 
( 320 ) 
