Chapter 66 Lake - 4

How the shore of the lake is so neatly paved, some people can't understand it. Everyone in the town has heard the legend, and the oldest person told me that they heard it in their youth—in ancient times, when the Indians People held a carnival on a hill, and the hill suddenly rose high into the sky, just as the lake now descends into the earth, and they are said to have committed many acts of impiety, which the Indians never committed. When they thus blasphemed the gods, the mountains shook, and the earth suddenly sank, leaving only an Indian woman named Walden, who escaped with her life, and the lake bears her name ever since.It is conjectured that when the mountain was shaken, these boulders rolled down and paved the current shore of the lake.At any rate, it is certain that there was no lake here before, and now there is one; and this Indian myth is in no way contradicted by the ancient inhabitant of whom I have been speaking, who remembers vividly his first days. When he came, he brought a wand, and he saw a thin mist rising from the grass, and the hazel wand pointed down until he decided to dig a well.As for those stones, many people think that they cannot be fixed to the undulations of the mountains; as far as I have observed, there are many such stones in the surrounding mountains, so people have to build walls on both sides at the place closest to the lake where the railway passes. ; and the steeper the shore, the more pebbles; so, unfortunately, this is no longer a mystery to me.I guessed that the paving man was coming.If the name of the lake was not derived from the name of a local Englishman named Saffron Walden—then I think the original name of Walden Pond may be Weierde Lake.

For me, the lake is a ready-made well dug.Four months of the year the water is as cold as it is pure throughout the year; and then I think it is as good as anywhere, if not the best water in the town.In winter, the water exposed to the air is always colder than the warm water of springs and wells.From five o'clock in the afternoon until noon the next day, March 6, 1846, in the room where I sat, the temperature gauge read sometimes sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, sometimes seventy degrees, partly because the sun had shone On the ridge of my roof, the water drawn from the lake is placed in this house, and the temperature is only forty-two degrees, which is one degree lower than the well water drawn on the spot from the coldest well in the village.In the same day, the temperature of the boiling spring is 45 degrees, which is the warmest among all kinds of water I have measured. Although it is the coldest water in summer, it refers to the shallow water floating on it. Layers of stagnant water were not mixed in.In summer, too, Walden, because of its depth, differs from waters which are generally exposed to the sun.It's not as hot as they are.In the hottest climates I often draw a bucket of water and keep it in the cellar.As soon as it had cooled during the night, it remained cold all day, and I sometimes went to draw water from a spring near by.A week later, the water is still as good as the day it was pumped, and there is no pump smell.Whoever wants to go camping by the lake in summer needs only to bury a bucket of water a few feet deep in the shade of the tent, so that he can avoid the extravagant storage of ice.

In Walden Pond, a pike was caught, and one weighed seven pounds, not to mention the other, which hauled off a coil of line with such rapidity that the fisherman, as he did not see it, assumed it was safe. A solid eight pounds, besides, perch, cod, some weighing two pounds, whitebait, bream (Leueiscus Pulchellus), a very small number of carp, two eels, one with four Pounds,—I write so much about the weight of fish, because their value is generally determined by weight, and as for eels, I have never heard of any other than these two,—Besides, I vaguely I remember a small fish five inches long, silvery on the sides, but bluish on the back, akin to a minnow in nature, which I mention chiefly in order to connect fact to fable.In short, there are not many fish in this lake.There aren't many barracudas either, but it's the barracudas that boast it.Lying on the ice once, I saw at least three different kinds of barracuda, one flat and long, steel-gray, as it is usually caught from the river; one golden, with green Glittering, in very deep deep water; the last golden one, similar in shape to the previous one, but with brown-black or black spots on the sides, with some faint blood-red spots in between, much like salmon.But the scientific name reticulatus (reticulation) is not used, it is called guttatus (variety).These are very solid fish, much heavier than they appear to be.Whitebait, cod, and perch, all that live in this pond, are indeed cleaner, more beautiful, and stronger than those of the common rivers and most other ponds, because the water is more Pure, you can easily tell them apart.Perhaps many ichthyologists can use them to breed some new species.There were also cleaning frogs and tortoises, and a few mussels; muskrats and martens had left their tracks;Once, when I was pushing my boat off the shore at dawn, I was disturbed by a large snapper that had been hiding under the boat at night.In spring and autumn, ducks and swans come, white-bellied swallows (Hirundo bicolor) flit over the waves, and speckled lapwings (Totanus macularius) waddle along the stony lakeshore all summer.I sometimes startle an osprey sitting on a white pine branch above the lake; but I don't know if gulls ever come here as they did to Fair Harbor.At most once a year the loons come.The birds that often come here are all included.