Chapter 64 lake - 2

The scenery of Walden is humble, and though it is beautiful, it is not grand, and may not attract the infrequent visitor, nor the man who lives on its shores: but this lake is distinguished by its depth and clarity, deserves a prominent description.It is a bright dark green lake, half a mile long, about a mile and three-quarters in circumference, and about sixty-one and a half acres; In addition, there is no other ins and outs to be found.The surrounding peaks rise suddenly from the water, to a height of forty to eighty feet, but to a hundred feet on the southeast side, and a hundred and fifty feet on the east side, which are no more than a quarter of the distance from the shore. mile and one-third of a mile.The mountains are all forests.All the waves of our Concord are at least of two colors, one seen at a distance, and the other, more nearly the original color, seen at near.The first type relies more on light, which changes according to the weather.In summer, when the weather is fine, it appears azure from a distance, especially when the water is rippling, but from a distance it is a deep blue.In stormy weather it sometimes takes on a dark slate color.The color of the sea, on the other hand, is said to be blue one day and green another, though there is not even the slightest appreciable change in the weather.In our water system here, I see that when the snow covers this landscape, the water and ice are almost grass green.It has been suggested that blue "is the color of pure water, whether it is flowing or congealing".However, looking directly down from a boat the nearby lake has a very different color.Even from the same observation point, Walden is blue at one moment and green at another.Standing between heaven and earth, it shares the pigments of both.Seen from the top of the mountain, it reflects the color of the sky, but when you look closer, where you can see the fine sand near the shore, the color of the water is first yellow, then light green, and then gradually deepens until the water ripples It uniformly presents the same dark green color throughout the lake.However, under the light at certain times, even from the top of a mountain, the color of the water near the shore of the lake is extremely green and vivid.Some people say that this is a reflection of the green field; but it is also green against the yellow sand here on the railway track. Moreover, in spring, the leaves have not yet grown up. This may be the blue of the space, reconciled A pure effect of yellow sand formed later.This is the pigment of its iridescent circle.It is also in this place that when spring comes, the ice cubes are melted by the sun’s heat reflected from the bottom of the water, and also by the sun’s heat transmitted through the land. This place first melts into a narrow canal with ice still in the middle.In clear weather, like the rest of our water waves, when turbulent, the plane of the wave reflects the sky at a right angle of ninety degrees, or is so bright that it appears smaller than the sky when viewed from a distance. Bluer; and at this time, boating on the lake, looking around for reflections, I found an incomparable, indescribable light blue, like silk soaked or discolored, and like a blue sword, compared to the sky It is still closer to sky blue, and it flashes alternately with the original dark green on the other side of the wave of light. Compared with it, the dark green seems very cloudy.It was a glassy greenish blue, and as far as I could remember, it was like a sunny day peeking out from the dark western clouds in winter before sunset.But if you hold up a glass of water and look at it in the air, it has no color, just like a glass of air filled with the same amount.It is well known that a large plate of thick glass takes on a greenish tint, and, according to those who make it, it is due to the "volume" that the same glass would lose its color if less.How much water should be in Walden Pond to be so green, I have never been able to prove.A man who looks directly down at our water sees it black, or dark brown, and a man who swims in the river, like all lakes, will tinge him with a yellow tint; but This lake is so pure that swimmers are as white as marble, and what is even more strange is that in this water the limbs are enlarged and distorted in such an exaggerated form that it is worthy of Michelangelo. Research.

The water is so transparent that the bottom can be seen clearly at a depth of twenty-five to thirty feet.When treading water with your bare feet, you see schools of perch and silverfish, only about an inch long, many feet below the surface, and the stripes of the former are clearly visible, and you feel that these fish I also don't want to be contaminated with the world of mortals, so I come here to survive.Once, in the winter, some years ago, I dug holes in the ice for pike, and when I got ashore I threw an ax on the ice, but it seemed as if some evil spirit meant to be a joke Yes, the ax slid four or five rods on the ice, and just slipped down a hole where the water was twenty-five feet deep, and out of curiosity I lay on the ice, and looking through the hole, I saw the It was an ax with its head down on one side, and the handle was straight up, swaying with the pulse of the lake. If I hadn't hung it up again later, it might have stayed upright until the wooden handle rotted. until it falls.Just above it, with the ice chisel I had brought, I made another hole, and with my knife, I cut the longest alder branch I saw in the vicinity, and I made a slipknot I placed the loop of noose at one end of the branch, lowered it carefully, put it around the protrusion of the handle, and pulled the rope by the side of the alder branch, so that the ax was hoisted.

The shore is formed by a long line of smooth, round white stones, like paving-stones; except for one or two small sandy beaches, it rises so steeply that a man's deep water can be plunged in a single leap; The water is so strangely clear that you can never see the bottom of this lake unless it rises again on the other side.Some people think it is bottomless.It is not muddy anywhere, and the occasional observer may say that there is not a single weed in it; as for the weeds that can be seen, except the meadows that have recently been covered by the rising water and do not belong to the lake. Besides, even if you look carefully, you can't really see calamus and reeds, not even water lilies, whether they are yellow or white, at most there are some heart-shaped leaves and scorpion grass, and maybe a pair of eyes. vegetables; yet they are invisible to the swimmer; and even these plants are as bright and untainted as the water in which they grow.The shore rocks stretch into the water, only a rod or two away, and the bottom of the water is pure fine sand, except for the deepest part, where there is always a little sediment, maybe rotten leaves, how many autumns, the fallen leaves have been blown onto the lake, There are also some bright green sphagnum moss, which will be pulled up even when the anchor is pulled up in the middle of winter.