224 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
The links should be gold also. Better that the 
good be not united than that a bad man be ad¬ 
mitted into their society. When men can select, 
they will. If there be any stone in the quarry 
better than the rest they will forsake the rest 
because of it. Only the good will be quarried. 
March 24, 1858. In many cases I find that 
the willow cones are a mere dense cluster of 
loose leaves, suggesting that the scales of cones 
of all kinds are only modified leaves, a crowd¬ 
ing and stinting of the leaves, as the stem be- 
comes a thorn, and in this view those conical 
bunches of leaves of so many of the pine family 
have relation to the cones of the tree in origin 
as well as in form. The leaf, perchance, be¬ 
comes calyx, cone, husk, and nut-shell. 
March 24, 1855. Passing up the Assabet by 
the hemlocks where there has been a slide and 
some rocks have slid down into the river, I 
think I see how rocks came to be found in the 
midst of rivers. Rivers are continually chan¬ 
ging their channels, eating into one bank and 
adding their sediment to the other, so that fre¬ 
quently where there is a great bend, you see a 
high and steep bank or hill on one side which 
the river washes, and a broad meadow on the 
other. As the river eats into the hill, especially 
in freshets, it undermines the rocks, large and 
small, and they slide down alone or with the 
