Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/323

Rh the bottom to the top. But the vegetation first extends itself over it in a film which gradually thickens till it supports shrubs, and completely conceals the water. The under part of this crust drops to the bottom, so that it is filled up first at the top and bottom, and the middle part is the last to be reclaimed from the water. Perhaps this swamp is in the process of becoming peat. It has been partially drained by a ditch.—I fathomed also two rods within the edge of the blueberry bushes, in the path, but I could not force a pole down more than eight feet five inches, so it is much more solid there, and the blueberry bushes require a firmer soil than the water andromeda.—This is a regular quag or shaking surface, and in this way evidently floating islands are formed. I am not sure but that meadow, with all its bushes in it, would float a man-of-war.

Feb. 2, 1841. It is easy to repeat, but hard to originate. Nature is readily made to repeat herself in a thousand forms, and, in the daguerreotype, her own light is amanuensis. The picture, too, has more than a surface significance, a depth equal to the prospect, so that the microscope may be applied to the one, as the spy glass to the other. Thus we may easily multiply the forms of the outward, but to give the within outwardness, that is not easy.