📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 64
1Yet perchance the first who came to this well have left some trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised to detect
2encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep
3hill-side, alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding from the water's edge, as old probably as the race
4of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time unwittingly trodden by the present
5occupants of the land. This is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a
6light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a
7quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it,
8as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo. The ornamented grounds of villas which will one day be built here may
9still preserve some trace of this. The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and within what period,
10nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to know. It is commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer,
11though not corresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can remember when it was a foot or two lower, and also when
12it was at least five feet higher, than when I lived by it. There is a narrow sand-bar running into it, with very deep
13water on one side, on which I helped boil a kettle of chowder, some six rods from the main shore, about the year 1824,
14which it has not been possible to do for twenty-five years; and on the other hand, my friends used to listen with
15incredulity when I told them, that a few years later I was accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the
16woods, fifteen rods from the only shore they knew, which place was long since converted into a meadow. But the pond has
17risen steadily for two years, and now, in the summer of '52, is just five feet higher than when I lived there, or as
18high as it was thirty years ago, and fishing goes on again in the meadow. This makes a difference of level, at the
19outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by the surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this
20overflow must be referred to causes which affect the deep springs. This same summer the pond has begun to fall again. It
21is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many years for its
22accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a part of two falls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the
23water will again be as low as I have ever known it. Flint's Pond, a mile eastward, allowing for the disturbance
24occasioned by its inlets and outlets, and the smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and recently
25attained their greatest height at the same time with the latter. The same is true, as far as my observation goes, of
26White Pond. This rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use at least; the water standing at this great
27height for a year or more, though it makes it difficult to walk round it, kills the shrubs and trees which have sprung
28up about its edge since the last rise, pitch-pines, birches, alders, aspens, and others, and, falling again, leaves an
29unobstructed shore; for, unlike many ponds and all waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore is cleanest when
30the water is lowest. On the side of the pond next my house, a row of pitch pines fifteen feet high has been killed and
31tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to their encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have
32elapsed since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond asserts its title to a shore, and thus the
33shore is shorn, and the trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of the lake on which no beard
34grows. It licks its chaps from time to time. When the water is at its height, the alders, willows, and maples send forth
35a mass of fibrous red roots several feet long from all sides of their stems in the water, and to the height of three or
36four feet from the ground, in the effort to maintain themselves; and I have known the high-blueberry bushes about the
37shore, which commonly produce no fruit, bear an abundant crop under these circumstances. Some have been puzzled to tell
38how the shore became so regularly paved. My townsmen have all heard the tradition, the oldest people tell me that they
39heard it in their youth, that anciently the Indians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high into the
40heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth, and they used much profanity, as the story goes, though this vice is
41one of which the Indians were never guilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly sank, and only
42one old squaw, named Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. It has been conjectured that when the hill shook
43these stones rolled down its side and became the present shore. It is very certain, at any rate, that once there was no
44pond here, and now there is one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the account of that ancient
45settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well when he first came here with his divining rod, saw a thin vapor
46rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones,
47many still think that they are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the waves on these hills; but I observe that
48the surrounding hills are remarkably full of the same kind of stones, so that they have been obliged to pile them up in
49walls on both sides of the railroad cut nearest the pond; and, moreover, there are most stones where the shore is most
50abrupt; so that, unfortunately, it is no longer a mystery to me. I detect the paver. If the name was not derived from
51that of some English locality,--Saffron Walden, for instance,--one might suppose that it was called originally Walled-in
52Pond. The pond was my well ready dug. For four months in the year its water is as cold as it is pure at all times; and I
53think that it is then as good as any, if not the best, in the town. In the winter, all water which is exposed to the air
54is colder than springs and wells which are protected from it. The temperature of the pond water which had stood in the
55room where I sat from five o'clock in the afternoon till noon the next day, the sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer
56having been up to 65° or 70° some of the time, owing partly to the sun on the roof, was 42°, or one degree colder than
57the water of one of the coldest wells in the village just drawn. The temperature of the Boiling Spring the same day was
5845°, or the warmest of any water tried, though it is the coldest that I know of in summer, when, beside, shallow and
59stagnant surface water is not mingled with it. Moreover, in summer, Walden never becomes so warm as most water which is
60exposed to the sun, on account of its depth. In the warmest weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar, where it
61became cool in the night, and remained so during the day; though I also resorted to a spring in the neighborhood. It was
62as good when a week old as the day it was dipped, and had no taste of the pump. Whoever camps for a week in summer by
63the shore of a pond, needs only bury a pail of water a few feet deep in the shade of his camp to be independent of the
64luxury of ice.
🎉 全部完成！共 64 行