Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/311

Rh as a naturalist of authority, when he was asked to write a review for The Dial, in July, 1842. This pristine journal of nature-facts, or embryonic science and philosophy, is about to gain a new interest among readers by the republication in available form of its four volumes. In the number indicated, the article by Thoreau, which has seemed to escape the detailed attention of his biographers, has a most interesting explanatory note by Emerson. It offers proof of Thoreau's wide knowledge of geology, botany, and bird-craft, even in these early years of his studies. In the preliminary note, the editor, whose personality as Mr. Emerson is quickly revealed, explains the purpose of the review and introduces its author thus:—"We were thinking how we might best celebrate the good deed which the State of Massachusetts has done, in procuring the scientific survey of the Commonwealth, whose result is recorded in these volumes, when we found a near neighbor and friend of ours, dear also to the Muses, a native and an inhabitant of Concord, who readily undertook to give us such comments as he had made on these books, and, better still, notes of his own conversation with nature in the woods and waters of this town. With all thankfulness we have begged our friend to lay down the oar and fishing-line, which none can