Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/321

Rh —The slides in Tuckerman's Ravine appeared to be a series of deep gullies side by side, where sometimes it appeared as if a very large rock had slid down without turning over, plowing this deep furrow all the way, only a few rods wide. Some of the slides were streams of rocks a rod or more in diameter each. In some cases which I noticed, the ravine side had evidently been undermined by water on the lower side.

It is surprising how much more bewildering is a mountain top than a level area of the same extent. Its ridges and shelves and ravines add greatly to its apparent extent and diversity. You may be separated from your party by stepping only a rod or two out of the path. We turned off three or four rods to the pond on our way up Lafayette, knowing that H was behind, and so we lost him for three quarters of an hour, and did not see him again till we reached the summit. One walking a few rods more to the right or left is not seen over the ridge of the summit, and, other things being equal, this is truer the nearer you are to the apex. If you take one side of a rock, and your companion another, it is enough to separate you sometimes for the rest of the ascent.

On these mountain summits or near them, you find small and almost uninhabited ponds, apparently without fish, sources of rivers, still and