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History of Ecological Sciences, Part 39: Henry David Thoreau, Ecologist

2011; Ecological Society of America; Volume: 92; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1890/0012-9623-92.3.251

2327-6096

Frank N. Egerton,

Rangeland and Wildlife Management

Click here for all previous articles in the History of the Ecological Sciences series by F. N. Egerton When Spencer Baird attempted to enroll Thoreau in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Thoreau responded (19 December 1853) on the questionnaire that he was “especially attracted by such books of science as White's Selborne and Humboldt's Aspects of Nature” (Harding and Bode 1958:309–310). However, that interest was not enough to convince this individualist to join a national scientific organization. Although Thoreau was an unconventional naturalist, many scholars have studied his science in general and his ecology in particular. Thoreau scholar Laura Dassow Walls and I have critiqued that literature (Egerton and Walls 1997). Audubon may be America's most popular naturalist (Egerton 2011:70–76), but there is more written about Thoreau. Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was born in Concord, Massachusetts, a small town on the Concord River that remained his lifelong home (Figs. 1–3). Map of Concord, Massachusetts, showing Walden Pond south of Concord (Thoreau 1993:18). This is a slightly corrected and simplified version of Herbert W. Gleason's map for the 1906 edition of Thoreau's Writings. Gleason's map is reproduced in the reprint of Thoreau's Journal (1962, II:1753–1757) and by Stowell (1970:32). Center of Concord, showing court house, Unitarian Church, and a hotel. Engraved by J. W. Barber, 1841. Thoreau house on Main Street. The Thoreaus lived in several houses; this was the last one Henry lived in, 1850–1862 (Harding 1962:110). A photograph of it is in Harding 1965:facing 365 and in Berger 1996a:44. I think that no experiences which I have today comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my boyhood… My life was ecstasy... This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. Not entirely ecstasy; as a child he was afraid of thunderstorms. Henry, at age 11 or 12, gave a clue to where he was headed when he wrote an essay, “The Seasons,” with one paragraph per season (Thoreau 1975:3). At Harvard, one of his few friends was the librarian and entomologist Thaddeus William Harris (1795–1856), whose course in natural history was one of two science courses Thoreau took (Wade 1926, Mallis 1971:25–33, Elliott 2008). In 1836 Thoreau read William Howitt's The Book of the Seasons; or the Calendar of Nature 1831, which strengthened his interest in what we call phenology (Sattelmeyer 1988:10). Howett's book inspired an essay, first published in 1951, in which Thoreau quoted approvingly Howitt's phenological goals, followed by Thoreau's own paragraphs for every month of the year (Thoreau 1975:26–36). Thoreau initiated his role as social critic in several essays he wrote for classes at Harvard (1975:4–26), where Professor Edward Tyrell Channing taught him to write (Richardson 1986:13). On 3 April 1837 Thoreau checked out Nature 1836 from the Harvard library. This anonymous volume, by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), was the founding work of American transcendentalism (Emerson 1990:2–36, Walls 2003). “The book revolutionized Thoreau's intellectual life and provided him with a worldview that he expanded in distinctive ways but never forsook” (Dean 2007:77). Perhaps the comment most influential on Thoreau is in Nature's first paragraph: “Why should not we also have an original relation to the universe?” Thoreau publicly assumed the role of social critic in the commencement address he delivered to his graduating class on 30 August 1837, entitled “The Commercial Spirit of Modern Times, Considered in Its Influence on the Political, Moral and Literary Character of a Nation.” Since New England's economy was mainly built on commerce, and his father was a sometime businessman, it seems surprising that he complained that the commercial spirit sustains a “blind and unmanly love of wealth,” and that the remedy was for his classmates to be “true to their natures,” and if so, “we shall hear no more of the commercial spirit” (Thoreau 1975:115–118). His father was too easygoing to prosper at making and selling pencils, and so was not a good testimonial for the rewards of commerce. However, with Henry's post-graduate assistance they made the best pencils in America until imported German pencils in 1849 diverted them to making plumbago for electrotyping (Sullivan 2009:140–141). Thoreau took over the business when his father died in 1859 (Laura Dassow Walls, personal communication). On 31 August, Emerson also gave a Harvard commencement address, “American Scholar” (1990:32–52), which was an inspiring call for Americans to create their own literature and culture, and not just trail along after Europe. Transcendentalism was a kind of natural theology, in which one studied nature both to understand and to relate to God. For Emerson, “Nature is the symbol of spirit.” To him, nature in general was very important, but he never descended to the particulars. Emerson was a philosopher– poet. However, natural theology had inspired the science of John Ray (Egerton 2005), and Emerson's transcendentalism inspired Thoreau to become both philosopher–poet and naturalist. They became friends in the fall of 1837, a friendship that lasted the rest of Thoreau's life. He was for several years Emerson's disciple. Emerson opened his library to Thoreau, and on two occasions (1841–1842, 1847–1848) Thoreau lived with the Emersons for more than a year. Emerson was largely responsible for Thoreau becoming a writer. But in the 1840s, Thoreau broke free, around the same time that Emerson began to run out of new ideas; and by the late 1840s Emerson was absorbing more ideas from Thoreau than the reverse (Harding 1965:298–304). For Emerson, nature was symbolically important, but he thought Thoreau wasted time studying the details (Sattelmeyer 1995:35). Thoreau began keeping a journal on 22 October 1837, in which he wrote almost daily for the rest of his life, almost two million words, or 7000 printed pages. One biographer claimed that “It was his major literary accomplishment,” though elsewhere he stated that “Walden is, without question, Thoreau's masterpiece” (Harding 1965:71, 333). The journal served as a resource for later publications and/or lectures, but it also contained essays that were never published elsewhere, which is why it is seen as a literary work itself (Peck 1990, x:39, Neufeldt 1995). Walls (1999) has compiled an anthology, in chronological order, of observations on science from the Journal. In June 1838 Thoreau opened a school in Concord, and his older brother, John, joined him in teaching there. One of their students was Louisa May Alcott, who had a crush on Henry (Cheever 2006:17–19). Henry taught Latin, Greek, French, mathematics, natural philosophy (physics and chemistry), and natural history. In his natural history course, he took his students on field trips, and he told them he knew the flowers of Concord well enough to tell the month of the year by seeing which flowers were in bloom (Harding 1965:82). Once he shot a Slate-colored Junco so the students could examine it, and he brought back from one trip three live frogs. The school lasted almost three years, until 1 April 1841, when John's tuberculosis forced him to stop teaching (Harding 1965:87–88). Alcott included memories of their school in her novel, Moods 1865. In spring 1839 the Thoreau brothers built a boat 15 feet long, with two sets of oars, two masts and sails, and wheels to roll it around waterfalls or dams. On 31August they rowed down the Concord River, turned north on the Middlesex Canal, and then up the Merrimack River (Fig. 4). This was the first of many New England trips that Thoreau took and later described in print. His specialty was philosophical natural history travelogues, which also included local history. The trip took two weeks, one on the rivers and one climbing through Franconia Notch, Crawford Notch, and to the top of Mount Washington, New Hampshire, 6288 feet elevation. One commentator judged Thoreau at this time was in his golden age, “his sensitivity was exquisite and rewarding” (Paul 1958:193). Thoreau's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers 1849 was a memorial to brother John, who had died of lockjaw on 11 January 1842 (Lebeaux 1977:198–199, 1984:1–5, Peck 1990:8–11). It includes essays which some critics have viewed as unrelated, though some recent critics disagree (Adams and Ross 1988:35–50, 76–103, Johnson 1995). The edition I own omits those essays (Thoreau 1954). Map, from the Concord River and Middlesex Canal, Massachusetts, in the south, almost to Mount Washington, New Hampshire (just north of the top of the map, midway between the Merrimack River and the New Hampshire–Maine boundary). Holden 1958:2–3. The narrow-leaved willow (Salix Purshiana) lay along the surface of the water in masses of light green foliage, interspersed with the large balls of the button-bush. The small rose-colored polygonum raised its head proudly above the water on either hand, and flowering at this season and in those localities, in front of dense fields of the white species which skirted the sides of the stream, its little streak of red looked very rare and precious. The pure white blossoms of the arrow-head stood in the shallower parts, and a few cardinals on the margin still proudly surveyed themselves reflected in the water, though the latter, as well as the pickerel-weed, was not nearly out of blossom. The snake-head (Chelone glabra) grew close to the above, while a kind of coreopsis, turning its brazen face to the sun, full and rank, and a tall, dull red flower (Eupatorium purpureum,) or trumpet-weed) formed the rear rank of the fluvial array. And this is only half of the paragraph. A botanist could enjoy this, as could an ichthyologist or a fisherman enjoy his discourse on the 10 species of fish he described in the Concord River (1906a:24–32, 1954:28–41), but he had not yet persuaded many general readers to come along for this ride. Although Thoreau turned to other subjects, his interest in the rivers around Concord persisted (McGregor 1997:121–166). For argument I should have the River—the Woods—the Ponds—the Hills—the Fields—the Swamps and Meadows—the Streets and Buildings—and the Villagers. Then Morning—Noon—and Evening—Spring Summer—Autumn and Winter—Night—Indian Summer—and the Mountains in the Horizon. Excepting streets, buildings, and villagers, these were all themes of his subsequent writings. Plants and animals are not named, but were implicit in the environments listed. The State wanted complete catalogues of its natural riches, with such additional facts merely as would be directly useful. The reports on Fishes, Reptiles, Insects, and Invertebrate Animals, however, indicate labor and research and have a value independent of the object of the legislature. Those on Herbaceous Plants and Birds cannot be of much value, as long as Bigelow [on plants] and Nuttall [on birds] are accessible. They serve but to indicate, with more or less exactness, what species are found in the State. We detect several errors ourselves, and a more practiced eye would no doubt expand the list. The Quadrupeds deserve a more final and instructive report than they have obtained. These volumes deal much in measurements and minute descriptions, not interesting to the general reader, with only here and there a colored sentence to allure him, like those plants growing in the dark forests, which bear only leaves without blossoms. The rest of the essay consists of musings and observations from his Journal (McGregor 1997:210) that he related to what he read in these volumes. His comments on Harris' insect volume were positive (1980:5–6), but in his Journal (1906, XII:171) he complained that Harris only reported “noxioux” insects (Wolf 1974:149). The interest of Thoreau's “Natural History of Massachusetts” for us is twofold: it shows that he was already using identification manuals for plants and animals and was acquiring four further reference works on them, and it shows an early, rather condescending attitude toward scientific natural history works, which changed as his own first-hand knowledge deepened. Since Thoreau did not even mention the names of the authors of these reports or make clear what was in each volume, it seems helpful to list the authors and titles (Meisel 1924–29:II, 648–649) David H. Storer and William B. O. Peabody, Report on Fishes, Reptiles and Birds of Massachusetts (Boston, 1839): ichthyology and herpetology by Storer, pages 1–253; ornithology by Peabody, pages 255–404. Chester Dewey and Ebenezer Emmons, Reports on the Herbaceous Plants and on the Quadrupeds of Massachusetts (Cambridge, 1840): herbaceous plants by Dewey, 8 + 277 + 86 pages; quadrupeds by Emmons, 5 + 4–86 pages. Thaddeus W. Harris, Report on the Insects of Massachusetts Injurious to Vegetation (Cambridge, 1841, 8 + 459 pages). Augustus A. Gould, Report on the Invertebrata of Massachusetts, comprising the Mollusca, Crustacea, Annelida, and Radiata (Cambridge, 1841, 13 + 373 pages, 15 plates). A fifth volume, on trees and shrubs, by George B. Emerson, appeared in 1846, too late to be included among those Thoreau reviewed. However, he obtained a copy of it and frequently consulted it, as his Journal citations attest (Thoreau 1906d:index, Harding 1957:47, Buell 1995b:173–174). In 1844, Emerson bought property on the shore of Walden Pond, 1.5 miles south of Concord, and in 1845 he gave Thoreau permission to cut some pines to build himself a cabin there. Thoreau also bought boards from a shanty for railroad workers (after the railroad was built) for his cabin. Staying there enabled Thoreau to live closer to nature than he did in Concord; he lived there from 4 July 1845 to 6 September 1847. Living partly withdrawn from society—he went home often, went to Maine, people went there to see him, and he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax to a government that supported slavery and a war against Mexico. Partial seclusion gave him the opportunity to make substantial progress on his two books, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers 1849 and Walden 1854. One of his visitors was Louisa May Alcott, who enjoyed boating and hiking with him as he explained nature to her (Cheever 2006:114). Walden had a New York publisher, with sales no better than his previous book, yet one recent critic judged it “one of the most magnificent books in English” (Cheever 2006:131). Walden is partly a natural history of an area and partly a philosophical discourse on living an independent life (Schneider 1995, Newman 2005:133–160). An independent life meant growing his own food. He planted 2.5 acres in beans, potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips, and what he did not eat he sold so that he could buy things he did not grow. Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond, with Thoreau in his boat. By May Alcott. Canby 1939:218. Thoreau seems to have been first to publish, in Walden, a detailed natural history of a lake (Buell 1995:475). Probably many more readers have read the book for its philosophy than for its natural history, but since there is philosophy tucked into the five chapters on natural history (out of fifteen chapters), those chapters probably were read by readers who were not primarily interested in natural history, as well as being read by naturalists. A prominent limnologist wrote an essay on Thoreau as limnologist, primarily focused on Walden (Deevey 1942), and he considered Thoreau the first American limnologist. Deevey wrote for scientific readers; Donald Quick (1972) and Kristina Joyce (1993) have written nontechnical accounts for Thoreau scholars. In 1840, while still teaching school, Thoreau had bought a surveying instrument to show students a practical application of mathematics, and after his school closed, surveying became his favored means of earning a living. At Walden Pond he extended this practice to the lake itself (Walls 1995:109–112), and he drew a map of it based upon precise measurements, including depth measurements along several straight lines, using compass and chain. He measured depths in early winter 1846 by chopping holes through the ice and dropping a 1.5-pound weight and line into the hole until it hit bottom (Thoreau 1973:287–288). He found this gave greater accuracy than measuring from a boat in summer. He made over 100 measurements, 75 of which are indicated on his map. Deevey re-measured Walden Pond and was astonished at how close to modern values Thoreau's data are. Thoreau's data then led him to ask other questions, a hallmark of the scientific method (Botkin 2001:8–9). Subsequently, he also drew other maps (see below). Walden Pond, 0.75 miles long and 0.5 miles wide. Map by Thoreau 1854: facing 307, 1973:286, 2004:278. His cabin was at point D. Against tradition, he drew the map with north at the bottom. If he had stood in front of his cabin and drawn the outline of the lake as seen, it would have been on the page as this is. Compare to Walden Pond in Fig. 1 (right of center). Thoreau noted that Walden Pond was “without any visible inlet or outlet except by the clouds and evaporation” (1973:175, 2004:170). This unusual situation was due to it being a glacial lake—unknown to Thoreau, as ice age theory was still in its infancy (McGregor 1997:11)—and that much of its water comes from groundwater seeping in from the east and out to the west (Deevey 1942:6, Barosh 1993). Thoreau suspected the latter situation, because the lake level fluctuated slowly over the years. Since the rise did not seem closely correlated with rain or snowfall, he concluded that “this overflow must be referred to causes which affect the deep springs” (1973:181, 2004:175). He also noted that Flint's Pond, east of Walden Pond, and White Pond, west of Fair Haven Bay (not labeled in Fig. 1), rose and fell in a sequence similar to Walden Pond. Flint's Pond was at a higher elevation than Walden Pond, and they seemed connected by a chain of small ponds, as though in some other geological period they were connected by a river, and there was a similar chain of small ponds between Walden and the Concord River, at a lower elevation (1973:194, 2004:187). Walden and White ponds were similar in having very clear water, which enabled one to see much of the bottom, but they also had little vegetation and supported many fewer fish than the shallower and less clear Flint's Pond. Thoreau recorded the nights in late December in which it froze over, for 1845, 1846, 1849, 1850, 1852 (not until 5 January), and 1853 (Thoreau 1973:249, 2004:239). Flint's and other shallow ponds froze 10 days sooner than Walden Pond. On 13 March, Bluebirds, Song Sparrows, and Red-winged Blackbirds had arrived from the south, yet the ice was still a foot thick. He also recorded the dates on which Walden Pond was completely open, in late March or early April, for 1845, 1846, 1847, 1851, 1852, and 1854 (Thoreau 1973:303, 2004:292). The ice broke up on the shallower Flint's Pond earlier than at Walden. Walden's only bottom vegetation was a green moss that came up with anchors retrieved from the bottom, which Deevey (1942:5) identified as Fontinalis. Organic sediment found in only the deepest parts of Walden Pond Thoreau correctly attributed to leaves blown into the lake in the fall. Besides the moss, the only aquatic plants in Walden Pond were a few small heart-leaves, potamogetons, and water-targets (= water-shield Brasenia peltata) (Thoreau 1973:178–179, 2004:173). At one point, Thoreau says that whenever the water level rose a few feet, it killed the shrubs and trees that had sprung up along the edges since the last rise: pitch-pines, birches, alders, and aspens. However, on the next page he explained that when water rose around alders, willows, and maples, they sent out a mass of roots three or four feet from the ground, “in an effort to maintain themselves; and I have known the high-blueberry bushes about the shore, which commonly produce no fruit, bear an abundant crop under these circumstances” (Thoreau 1973:182, 2004:176). Laura Dassow Walls photographed such a mass of roots directly from stems in the Walden Pond flood of summer 2010 (L. D. Walls, personal communication). White Pond had equally clear water, but contained other aquatic vascular plants: white lily, common sweet flag, and blue flag (Thoreau 1973:199, 2004:192). Thoreau in front of his cabin, based upon his description of it in Walden. Walden Ever Wild brochure. Although the clear water of Walden Pond did not support an abundance of life, it did have the advantage of allowing one to see its fish. One could see schools of tiny perch and shiners, only about an inch long, the former distinguished by transverse bars (Thoreau 1973:177–178, 2004:172). Other fish were chivins, breams, pouts, eels, and three kinds of pickerels, including reticulatus and guttatus. Perch and pout grew to two pounds, eels to four, and pickerels to seven or eight pounds (Thoreau 1973:183–184, 2004:178). Most lake shore had smooth rocks, but there were two sandy beaches, and near the sandy east beach at 8 or 10 feet deep were circular heaps of small stones about 6 feet in diameter and about a foot high, like those in rivers made by suckers or lampreys; since neither species was in the lake, perhaps chivin gathered the stones. Walden Pond's residents included frogs, tortoises, mud turtles (snapping turtles), mussels, muskrats, and mink. In spring and fall, ducks and geese passed through, and summer residents included white-bellied swallows Hirundo bicolor (Tree Swallow, Tachycineta bicolor), kingfishers, and peetweets Totanus macularius (Spotted Sandpiper, Actitis macularia), and an occasional fish hawk (osprey) and loon (Cruickshank 1964). An old timer remembered that 60 years earlier there had been more waterfowl and many eagles. Aquatic insects did not attract much notice from Thoreau. He only mentioned the water-bug Gyrinus and skaters, both of which disappeared in October (Thoreau 1973:185–190, 2004:180–184). There were also raccoons and a four-foot-long otter, seldom seen (Thoreau 1973:227, 2004:218). led her brood past my windows, from the woods in the rear to the front of my house, clucking and calling to them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind only their mother's directions given from a distance, nor will your approach make them run again and betray themselves. You may even tread on them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering them. I have held them in my open hand at such a time, and still their only care, obedient to their mother and their instinct, was to squat there without fear or trembling. Thoreau got his water from a spring, and there he saw a woodcock, who brought her brood to the damp mud, seeking worms. Turtle (mourning) doves sat on white pine limbs nearby. Thoreau was fascinated by a battle between smaller red and larger black ants which snipped off the legs and antennae of their opponents and fought to the death (Thoreau 1973:228–232, 2004:219– 222). On this phenomenon he consulted “Kirby and Spence,” meaning An Introduction to Entomology, by William Kirby and William Spence (two volumes, 1815–1826), without specifying which edition. Perhaps he used the sixth edition (1843); if so, he found the passage in Volume 2, pages 58–61. (After publishing Walden, Thoreau obtained Volume 1 of an 1856 edition [Harding 1957:64–65].) The earliest descriptions of such battles Kirby and Spence cited was by Nicholas Pistoriensis, during the pontificate of Eugenius IV (1431–1447); the second by Olaus Magnus, during the reign of Christian II of Sweden (1520–23); and so Thoreau dated his observations to “the Presidency of Polk, five years before the passage of Webster's Fugitive-Slave Bill.” This was one of 51 discussions of insects in Walden and of 2512 discussions in Thoreau's writings published by 1926 (Wade 1927:2). He tried unsuccessfully to identify two species of glowworms given to him (Dedmond 1994). In my front yard grew the strawberry, blackberry, and life-everlasting, johnswort and golden-rod, shrub-oaks and sand-cherry, blueberry and ground-nut. Near the end of May, the sand-cherry, Cerasus pumila, adorned the sides of the path with its delicate flowers arranged in umbels cylindrically about its short stems, which in the fall, weighed down with good sized and handsome cherries, fell over in wreaths like rays on every side…. summach, Rhus glabra, grew luxuriantly about the house… In October he collected wild apples and chestnuts. He competed for the latter with squirrels and jays. Once while digging for worms for fish bait, he saw ground-nuts (Apios tuberose) and commented: “Cultivation has well nigh exterminated it” (1973:239, 2004:230) by which he perhaps meant that where it grew was being planted with domesticated plants. Henry David Thoreau, scholar and public speaker, by Samuel Worcester Rowse, 1854. The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the pickerel; and so the chinks in the scale of being are filled. Yet, if grub-worms the perch swallowed were bait, fisherman ate the perch, bypassing pickerel. When Thoreau left Walden on 6 September 1847, he went to live with Mrs. Emerson and children while Ralph went on a lecture tour of Britain. When the tour ended, Thoreau moved back to his own home. For the rest of his life he traveled frequently in New England. In 1849, after leaving Walden Pond but before publishing Walden, Thoreau began reading Humboldt's Views of Nature, Personal Narrative of Travels, and Cosmos, which strongly influenced his new Humboldtian outlook and scientific method (Walls 2009:262–264). The passage quoted above from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers shows Thoreau had a serious interest in botany by 1849, and by mid-November 1850 he began keeping records of his field observations on seasonal changes (Buell 1995:130–131). There was already a significant literature on the subject (Egerton 1976:330–331). In December 1850 he was elected a member of the Boston Society of Natural History and could borrow books from its substantial library. In spring 1851, the Smithsonian Institution sent out to naturalists an appeal, “Registry of Periodical Phenomena,” to record observations on “periodical phenomena of Animal and Vegetable life” and send them to the Institution (Dean 2000:x–xi). It had a checklist of 127 plants by which one could mark flowering dates. Here was scientific reinforcement of his persistent interest. Dean (2000:xii) suggests Thoreau apparently intended to write a history of periodical phenomena of the Concord region and then synthesize it into an “archetypal year,” as he had done in Walden. He organized eight years of his botanical notes into detailed monthly charts on first day of flowering for several hundreds of species (Egerton 1976:332–333, Peck 1990:163–166). Using Ray Angelo's Botanical Index to the Journal of Henry David Thoreau 1984, Richard Primack and Abe Miller-Rushing have contrasted Thoreau's phenology data with current phenological data for Concord to detect the effects of global warming (Nijhuis 2007). Thoreau made several journeys into Maine and to Cape Cod, wrote essays, and lectured on these experiences. The essays were collected posthumously into The Maine Woods 1864 and Cape Cod 1865. Both are travelogues with natural history insertions. A Pennsylvania plant ecologist, John W. Harshberger (1869–1929), climbed Ktadden on 1 August 1900 (Burgess 1996:52), and when reporting his observations he quoted Thoreau appreciatively (1902:24). J. J. Moldenhauer (1995) critiques Maine Woods and P. F. Gura critiques Cape Cod 1995. In The Wildest Country: a Guide to Thoreau's Maine 1981, Parker Huber provides a map with dates indicating where Thoreau went on his explorations in 1846, 1853, and 1857. Huber also provides 10 larger-scale maps, and chapters, describing what Thoreau saw in each of those regions. The first part of Thoreau's book had been a magazine article, “Ktaadn and the Maine Woods” (1848). Part of that account is about climbing Mount Katahdin (as it is now spelled; for its location, see 1846 arrow inside Baxter State Park in Fig. 9). He started out with several companions, but he was the only one who climbed near the top. As he began his descent, he was awe-struck by the vast wilderness stretched out before him (Thoreau 1906b:88, 1972:80) Map of Thoreau's travels in Maine, 1846, 1853, and 1857. Huber 1981:2. What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals or glades than you had imagined. Except the few burnt lands, the narrow intervals on the rivers, the bare tops of the high mountains, and the lakes and streams, the forest is uninterrupted. It is even more grim and wild than you had anticipated, a damp and intricate wilderness… It is a country full of evergreen trees, of mossy silver birches and watery maples, the ground dotted with insipid, small, red berries, and strewn with damp and moss-grown rocks—a country diversified with innumerable lakes and rapid streams, peopled with trout and various species of leucisci, with salmon, shad, and pickerel, and other fishes; the forest resounding at rar