Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/92

 a mere brook, which may be passed at a stride, falling upon a rock, has worn it to an oval basin from twenty to thirty feet in diameter, and proportionately deep; the water passing out, probably, after one or more revolutions, by a deep channel, though scarcely more than a foot in width, and directly opposite its entrance. It has a rounded brim of glassy smoothness, and is filled with cold, pellucid greenish water. Smaller "potholes" may be observed also at the Flume, at Bottom s Falls; and more or less generally, I presume, about all falls.

The Manchester Manufacturing Company have constructed a canal at the Amoskeag Falls, almost a mile long, through which we passed. We presently came upon several canal-boats at intervals of a quarter of a mile, standing up to Hooksett with a light breeze, and one by one they disappeared round a point above. With their broad sails set, they moved slowly up the stream in the sluggish and fitful breeze, as if impelled by some mysterious counter current, like antediluvian birds,—a grand motion so slow and steady, it reminded us of [44]