Chapter 65 Lake - 3

We have another such pond, White Pond at Nine Acre Corner, two and a half miles to the west; I am familiar with it, but I can't find a third lake that has such a characteristic of being as pure as well water.Peoples who have drank from this lake, admired it, and measured its depth have disappeared one by one, but the water is still clear and green.Not a single spring has changed!Perhaps Walden Pond existed long before that spring morning when Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, and even then, with light mist and gusts of southern phoenix, came a gentle spring rain, The surface of the lake is no longer calm, and flocks of wild ducks and swans are swimming in the lake. They don't know about being expelled from paradise at all. It is enough to have such pure lake water.It was then that it had risen and fallen, purified its waters, and taken on all its present colors, and had monopolized the sky, and became the only Walden Pond in the world. Is the alembic of the dew from the sky.Who knows, in how many national poems that are no longer remembered, this lake has been hailed as the spring of Casteria?How many spirits of the mountains and waters dwelt here in the Golden Age?This is the first drop in Concord's crown.

The first people to come to this lake may have left their footprints.I was surprised to find that there is a dense forest that has been cut down along the lake. Among the steep cliffs, there is a narrow elevated path that goes around the lake. It goes up, down and approaches the lake for a while. After a while, it was farther away. It may be the same age as human beings. The indigenous hunters walked out of this road with their feet, and the inhabitants of this land from generation to generation will walk by their feet unconsciously. .Standing in the middle of the lake in winter, it looks clearer, especially after a light snowfall, it becomes a continuous white line, which cannot be covered by dead grass or dead branches. It is very clear from a mile away, but in summer, even if you look closely, you still can't make it out.It can be said that the snowflakes have printed it again in clear white relief.I hope that in the future, when people build some decorative gardens of villas here, this remnant can still be preserved.

The water of the lake sometimes rises and sometimes falls, but whether there is a pattern, and if there is a pattern, what kind of cycle, no one knows, although many people still pretend to know it.The water level is usually higher in winter and lower in summer, but the water level has nothing to do with the dryness and humidity of the weather.I can remember when the water had receded a foot or two lower than when I lived there, and when it had risen at least five feet higher.There is a narrow sandbar extending into the lake, with deep water on one side, about six rods from the main bank, about 1824, on which I once boiled a pot of chowder, but for twenty-five years the water Submerging it, I can't cook anything anymore; on the other hand, when I tell my friends that after a few years, I will often hang out in that secluded cove in the forest, driving a small boat. , about fifteen rods from the shore they could now see, where it had long since become a meadow, they had often heard dubiously.For two years, however, the lake had been rising, and now, in the summer of 1852, it was five feet higher than when I lived there, as high as it was thirty years ago, and fishing was again possible on that meadow. up.The level of the water appeared to have risen six or seven feet, but the actual amount of water coming down from the surrounding hills was small, and the rise must be due to some cause which affected its deep springs.The water receded again in the same summer.What is striking is that this ebb and flow, cyclical or not, takes years to complete.I observed one rise, and partly observed two ebbs, and I thought that in twelve or fifteen years the water would drop again to where I had known it before.A mile to the east, Flint's Pond, fed by springs and outflows, is turbulently ebb and flow, while some of the smaller lakes in between have advanced and retreated with Walden Pond, and have lately reached their highest level. , the time is the same as the latter.The same is true of White Lake, as far as I can see.

The long intervals between the rise and fall of Walden Pond have at least one effect: the highest water level has been maintained for about a year. It is difficult to walk along the lake, but since the last rise, the shrubs and pines, birches, etc. , alder, poplar and other trees have been washed away, and when its water level recedes, a clean lakeshore will be left. Unlike other lakes and rivers whose water level fluctuates every day, when the water level is at its lowest, the lakeshore will be clean. Cleanest.On the shore near my house, a row of pines fifteen feet high was washed, as if thrown over by a lever, and thus checked their encroachment; How many years has this height been so far.In this manner of ebb and flow, the lake retains its right to the shore, which is so shaved that the trees cannot claim it by right of ownership.The lake's tongue licked and kept the beard from growing.It licks its cheeks from time to time.When the lake is at its highest, the alders, willows, and maples protrude from their submerged roots massive fibrous red rootlets several feet long, three or four feet above the ground, for protection. themselves; and I have also found that those high on the bank, which are usually barren, yielded a bountiful crop in this case.