Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/239

Rh 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 insignificant. 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 instant

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.