EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 225 
sand and soil to the water’s edge. The river 
continues to eat into the hill, carrying away all 
the lighter parts, the sand and soil, to add to its 
meadows or islands somewhere, but leaves the 
rocks where they rested, and thus, in course of 
time, they occupy the middle of the stream, and 
later still, the mud of the meadow, perchance, 
though they may be buried under the mud. 
But this does not explain how so many rocks 
lying in streams have been split in the direction 
of the current. Again rivers appear to have 
traveled back and worn into the meadows of 
their own creating, and then they become more 
meandering than ever. Thus, in the course of 
ages, the river wriggles in its bed till it feels 
comfortable. Time is cheap and rather insig¬ 
nificant. It matters not whether it is a river 
which changes from side to side in a geological 
period, or an eel that wriggles past in an in¬ 
stant. 
It is too cold to think of those signs of spring 
which I find recorded under this date last year. 
The earliest of such signs in vegetation, noticed 
thus far, are the maple sap, the willow catkins 
and those of the poplar (not examined early), the 
celandine (?), grass on south banks , and perhaps 
cowslip in sheltered places, alder catkins loosened, 
and also white maple buds loosened. I am not 
sure that the osiers are decidedly brighter yet. 
15 
