6 August 1860 – 12 August 1860

The last was a clear, cool night. At 4 A. m. see local lake-like fogs in some valleys below, but there is none here. This forenoon, after a breakfast on cranberries, leav- ing, as usual, our luggage concealed under a large rock, with other rocks placed over the hole, we moved about a quarter of a mile along the edge of the plateau east- ward and built a new camp there. It was [a] place which I had noticed the day before, where, sheltered by a per- pendicular ledge some seven feet high and close to the brow of the mountain, grew five spruce trees. ‘I'wo of these stood four feet from the rock and six or more apart; so, clearing away the superfluous branches, I rested stout rafters from the rock-edge to limbs of the two spruces and placed a plate beam across, and, with two or three cross-beams or girders, soon had a roof which I could climb and shingle. After filling the inequalities with rocks and rubbish, I soon had a sloping floor on ™, which to make our bed. Lying there on that shelf just on the edge of the steep declivity of the mountain, we could look all over the south and southeast world with- out raising our heads. The rock running east and west was our shelter on the north. Our huts, being built of spruce entirely, were not no- ticeable two or three rods off, for we did [not] cut the spruce amid which they were built more than necessary, bending aside their boughs in order to enter. My com- panion, returning from a short walk, was lost when within two or three rods, the different rocks and clumps of spruce looked so much alike, and in the moonlight we were liable to mistake some dark recess between two neighboring spruce ten feet off for the entrance to our house. We heard this afternoon the tread of a blueberry- picker on the rocks two or three rods north of us, and saw another as near, south, and, stealing out, we came round from another side and had some conversation with them,—two men and a boy, — but they never discovered our house nor suspected it. The surface is so uneven that ten steps will often suffice to conceal the ground you lately stood on, and yet the different shelves and hollows are so much alike that you cannot tell if one is new or not. It is somewhat like travelling over a huge fan. When in a valley the nearest ridge conceals all the others and you cannot tell one from another.

Morning — dawn and sunrise — was an- other interesting season. I rose always by four or half past four to observe the signs of it and to correct my watch. From our first camp I could not see the sun rise, but only when its first light (yellowish or, rather, pink- pled portion in the middle. ish) was reflected from the lichen-clad rocks of the south- ern spur. But here, by going eastward some forty rods, © I could see the sun rise, though there was invariably a low stratum or bar of cloud in the horizon. The sun rose about five. The tawny or yellowish pastures about the mountain (below the woods; what was the grass ?) reflected the auroral light at 4.20 a. Mm. remarkably, and they were at least as distinct as at any hour.

Wednesday. 8.30 4.M. Walk round the west side of the summit. Bathe in the rocky pool there, collect mountain cranberries on the northwest side, return over the summit, and take the bearings of the different spurs, etc. Return to camp at noon. Toward night, walk to east edge of the plateau.

At 6 A. M., leave camp for Troy, where we arrive, after long pauses, by 9 a. M., and take the cars at 10.5. I observed these plants on the rocky summit of the mountain, above the forest: — Raspberry, not common. Low blueberries of two or three varieties.! Bunchberry. Solidago thyrsoidea. Fetid currant, common; leaves beginning to be scarlet; grows amid loose fallen rocks. Red cherry, some ripe, and handsome. Black choke-berry. Potentilla tridentata, still lingering in bloom. Aralia hispida, still lingering in bloom. Cow-wheat, common, still in bloom. Mountain cranberry, not generally abundant; full grown earlier than lowland ditto.? Black spruce. Lambkill, lingering in flower in cool and moist places.

2p. m.—Air, 84°; Boiling Spring this after- noon., 46°; Brister’s, 49°; or where there is little or no ™~ surface water the same as in spring. Walden is at sur- face 80° (air over it 76). Aster dumosus and pennyroyal out; how long? Sand cherry is well ripe — some of it — and tolerable, better than the red cherry or choke-cherry. Juncus paradocus, that large and late juncus (tailed), as in Hubbard’s Close and on island above monument and in Great Meadows, say ten days. Saw yesterday in Fitzwilliam from the railroad a pond covered with white lilies uniformly about half the size of ours! Saw this evening, behind a picture in R. W. E.’s dining-room, the hoary bat. First heard it fluttering at dusk, it having hung there all day. Its rear parts cov- ered with a fine hoary down.

Panicum capillare; how long? Cyperus strigosus; how long?

The river-bank is past height. ‘The button- bush is not common now, though the clethra is in prime. The black willow hardly ceases to shed its down when it looks yellowish. Setaria glauca, some days. Elymus Virginicus, some days. Andropogon furcatus (in meadow); how long? Probably before scoparius. Zizania several days. River at 5 p. mM. three and three quarters inches be- low summer level. Panicum glabrum (not sanguinale ? — our common); how long? The upper glume equals the flower, yet it has many spikes.