27 July 1857 – 2 August 1857

Monday. ‘There were some yellow lilies (Nuphar), Scutellaria galericulata, clematis (abun- dant), sweet-gale, “great smilacina” (did I mean S. racemosa ?), and beaked hazel, the only hazel I saw in Maine.

Tuesday. As I remember, Hodge mistakes when he says’ that “it is erroneously represented on the charts, for it extends in a north-northeasterly, south- southwesterly direction about twelve miles.’’ He appears to be thinking of the easterly part. On the north side there is quite a clearing, and we had been advised to ascend the bare hill there for the sake of the prospect. . .. Great trunks of trees stood dead and bare far out in the lake, making the impression of ruined piers of a city that had been, while behind, the timber lay criss- a-cross for half a dozen rods or more over the water. . . . We were glad to find on this carry some raspberries, and a few of the Vaccinium Canadense berries, which had begun to be ripe here.

Wednesday. I noticed there! Aralia race- mosa, and Aster macrophyllus in bloom, with bluish rays and quite fragrant (!), like some medicinal herb, so that I doubted at first if it were that... . I found on the edge of this clearing the Cirsium muticum, or swamp thistle, abundantly in bloom. I think we scared up a black partridge just beyond... .

Thursday. Isaw thus early the slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis) here. As I walked along the ridge of the island, through the woods, I heard the rush and clatter of a great many ducks which I had alarmed from the concealed northern shore beneath mes . bw I heard here, at the foot of the lake, the cawing of a crow, which sounded so strangely that I suspected it might be an uncommon species... . | To a philosopher there is in a sense no great and no small, and I do not often submit to the criticism which objects to comparing so-called great things with small. It is often a question which is most dignified by the comparison, and, beside, it is pleasant to be reminded that ancient worthies who dealt with affairs of state recognized small and familiar objects known to ourselves. We are surprised at the permanence of the relation. Loudon in his “Arboretum,” vol. iv, page 2038, says, “ Dionysius the geographer compares the form of the Morea in the Levant, the ancient Pelopon- nesus, to the leaf of this tree [the Oriental plane]; and Pliny makes the same remark in allusion to its numer- ous bays. To illustrate this comparison, Martyn, in his Virgil (vol. ii, page 149), gives a figure of the plane tree leaf, and a map of the Morea,” both which Lou- don copies." Loudon says (“Arboretum,” vol. iv, page 2323, apparently using the authority of Michaux, whom see in my books) of the hemlock that “in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the district of Maine, the state of Vermont, and the upper parts of New Hampshire, it forms three quarters of the evergreen woods, of which the remainder consists of the black spruce.” (!) Speaks of its being “constantly found at the foot of the hills.” The events attending the fall of Dr. Johnson’s celebrated willow at Lichfield, —a Salix Russelliana twenty-one feet in circumference at six feet from the ground, — which was blown down in 1829, were char- acteristic of the Briton, whose whole island, indeed, is a museum. While the neighbors were lamenting the fate of the tree, a coachmaker remembered that he had used some of the twigs for pea-sticks the year before and made haste to see if any of these chanced to be alive. Finding that one had taken root, it was forth- with transplanted to the site of the old tree, “a band of music,” says Loudon, “and a number of persons attending its removal, and a dinner being given after- wards by Mr. Holmes [the coachmaker]' to his friends, and the admirers of Johnson.”

Friday. This morning heard from the camp the red-eye, robin (P. said it was a sign of rain), tweezer-bird, 7. e. parti-colored warbler, chickadee, wood thrush, and soon after starting heard or saw a blue jay. ... I saw here my sweet-scented Aster macrophyllus (? ) just out, also, near end of carry in rocky woods, a new plant, the halenia or spurred gentian, which I observed afterward on the carries all the way down to near the mouth of the East Branch, eight inches to two feet high. I also saw here, or soon after, the red cohosh berries, ripe, (for the first time in my life); spikenard, etc. The commonest aster of the woods was A. acuminatus, not long out, and the commonest solidago on the East Branch, Solidago squarrosa. . . . P. said that his mother was a Province woman and as white as anybody, but his father a pure-blooded Indian. I saw no trace of white blood in his face, and others, who knew him well and also his father, were confident that his mother was an Indian and suggested that she was of the Quoddy tribe (belonged to New Brunswick), who are often quite light-colored. . . . I got there’ one (apparently) Liliwm superbum flower, with strongly ‘revolute sepals and perfectly smooth leaves beneath, otherwise not large nor peculiar. On this East Branch we saw many of the small purple fringed orchis (Platanthera psycodes), but no large ones (P. fimbriata), which alone were noticed on the West Branch and Umbazookskus. Also saw often the Lysvmachia ciliata, and once white cohosh berries, and at one place methinks the Vaccinium Pennsylva- nicum (?) with the other... . On a small bare sand or gravel bar,’ I observed that same Prunus which grows on the rocks at Bellows Stream. See Maine Woods, p. 309; Riv. 384.] Falls, whose leaf might at first sight be mistaken for that of a willow. It is evidently the Prunus depressa (sand cherry) of Pursh, and distinct, as a variety at least, from the common allied one (P. pumila of Pursh), which is not depressed even when it grows, as it often does abundantly, in river meadows (e. g. Edmund Hosmer’s on Assabet). The leaf of the former is more lanceo- late-spatulate, and I have never seen it in Concord, though the P. pumila is very common here. Gray de- scribes but one kind. Jackson, being some miles below this, in the East Branch, the 6th of October, twenty years ago, says, “There are several small gravelly islands covered with a profusion of deep purple beach plums, but since they had been frozen they were found to be taste- less and insipid.”’ We did not see any of these.

I saw at the end of this carry’ small A7o- cynum cannabinum on the rocks, also more of the spurred gentian. . . Here were many Canada blueberries and, on the rocks, a new Allium or garlic, with purple flowers, and the Lobelia Kalmii, both on bare rocks just below the falls. On the main land were Norway pines and a sandy soil, and Beomyces roseus and Desmodium Cana- dense, — a new soil for this river.’

Sunday. Ata small river coming in from the south a few miles below Nicketow, the Penobscot is crooked and the place is called Payt-gum-kiss, or Petticoat, according to P.