William Lewis Herndon

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Lewis Herndon HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1813

October 25, Monday: William Lewis Herndon was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

On the Chateaugay River, British troops and their native allies defeated a United States force that actually outnumbered them 7 to 1. This forced the United States to abandon its invasion of Québec.

October 26, Tuesday: Austrian forces defeated the French at Valsarno, thus returning Austrian arms to Italy.

At Chateauguay, Charles de Salaberry defeated an American invasion.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

William Lewis Herndon “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1828

November 1, Saturday: William Lewis Herndon enlisted in the US Navy, as a midshipman.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Lewis Herndon HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1834

Midshipman William Lewis Herndon was promoted to Passed Midshipman.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Lewis Herndon HDT WHAT? INDEX

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1841

William Lewis Herndon received a US Navy commission as a Lieutenant.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project William Lewis Herndon HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1842

The new naval Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon was assigned to work with his relative Matthew Fontaine Maury in preparation of ocean charts at the Depot of Charts and Instruments.

Lieutenant Uriah Phillips Levy, the only Jewish officer in the US Navy, was promoted to Captain by President John Tyler.

JUDAISM

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

William Lewis Herndon “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1846

The Free Soil Party was formed as moderate Whigs broke with conservative, status quo Whigs over the issue of slavery. This disruption drew much of the political strength toward the Democrats as the USA declared war upon Mexico. Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft of Massachusetts refused to support this act of aggression, and both the Whigs and the Democrats became divided on the merits of the action. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft of Massachusetts HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Alexander William Doniphan became colonel of the 1st Regiment of Missouri Mounted Volunteers, and would participate during the war on Mexico in several campaigns, including General Stephen W. Kearny’s campaign for capture of the settlement at Santa Fe and then continuing into a northern region of Mexico (present day northern New Mexico).

During the War upon Mexico, Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon would be in command of the brig Isis. WAR ON MEXICO

Governor George Nixon Briggs of Massachusetts refused to grant commissions to militia officers unless they pledged to not to take their units beyond the borders of the state. Caleb Cushing raised a regiment which would serve in the war as a unit of the Regular US Army. In Massachusetts, the Liberty Party received larger voter support than it had ever before received.

“HUCKLEBERRIES”: In this country a political speech, whether by Mr. Seward or Caleb Cushing, is a great thing, a ray of light a little thing. It would be felt to be a greater national calamity if you should take six inches from the corporeal bulk of one or two gentlemen in Congress, than if you should take a yard from their wisdom and manhood.

SLAVERY HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

During this year, in his journal of his trip to Maine, and later in his published account of the trip, Thoreau would mention this Liberty Party:

Fall 1846: One after another we filed into the rude lumberers’ camp at this place built of logs like those I have described. Here was only the cook to receive us A phlegmatic well fed personage who set about preparing a cup of tea and hot cakes for his visitors. His fire had been entirely put out and his fire fire place filled several inches deep by the rain but now it was kindled again –and we sat down on the log benches around it to dry us. The chinks were not filled against the winter –and light & air came in on every side Here was an odd leaf of the bible –some genealogical chapter to prove their Christianity– And the next things that turned up was Emerson Address on W I Emancipation –which had made two converts to the liberty party here, an odd number of the Westminster Rev. for 1834 –& a pamphlet entitled Hist. of the Erection of the MYRON HOLLEY Monument on the grave of Myron Holley –& these were well thumbed and soiled The men employed in such works as this are Jacks at all trade, who are handy at various things and accustomed WALDO EMERSON to make shifts –skilful with the axe and ruder implements of good judgement and well skilled in wood and water-craft. I observed by their poles that they sometimes indulged in fishing. Their hands not restricted to the processes of one trade only –but free and as it were intelligent to practise many. tea was served out to us in tin cups from a huge coffe pot with molasses but no milk of course and hot cakes for solid food We did ample justice to this fare and when we had done filled our pockets with the never failing sweet cakes which remained –foreseeing that we were not soon to meet such fare again. And so informing John Morrison that we had pocketed all his sweet cakes and exchanging our batteau for a better we made haste to improve the little daylight that remained. The dam had smoothed over many a rapid for us where formerly there was a rough current to be resisted – Beyond there was no trail –and the river and lakes was the only practicable rout. We were from 25 to 30 miles from the summit of the Mt –(though not more than 20 perhaps –in a straight line1 WEST INDIES EMANCIPATION

1.The Twin Lakes, like Quakish Lake, are enlargements of the Penobscot River. It is easy for a canoeist, unfamiliar with the area, to spend long hours seeking the river inlet to the lakes. Thoreau’s party was fortunate to have an experienced guide, in attempting a crossing at night. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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THE MAINE WOODS: We filed into the rude logger’s camp at this place, such as I have described, without ceremony, and the cook, at that moment the sole occupant, at once set about preparing tea for his visitors. His fireplace, which the rain had converted into a mud-puddle, was soon blazing again, and we sat down on the log benches around it to dry us. On the well-flattened and somewhat faded beds of arbor-vitae leaves, which stretched on either hand under the eaves behind us, lay an odd leaf of the Bible, some genealogical chapter out of the Old Testament; and, half buried by the leaves, we found Emerson’s Address on West India EMERSON Emancipation, which had been left here formerly by one of our company, and had made two converts to the Liberty party here, as I was told; also, an odd number of the Westminster Review, for 1834, and a pamphlet entitled History of the Erection of the Monument on the grave of Myron Holly. This was the readable, or HOLLEY reading matter, in a lumberer’s camp in the Maine woods, thirty miles from a road, which would be given up to the bears in a fortnight. These things were well thumbed and soiled. This gang was headed by one John Morrison, a good specimen of a Yankee; and was necessarily composed of men not bred to the business of dam- building, but who were Jacks-at-all-trades, handy with the axe, and other simple implements, and well skilled in wood and water craft. We had hot cakes for our supper even here, white as snow- balls, but without butter, and the never-failing sweet cakes, with which we filled our pockets, foreseeing that we should not soon meet with the like again. Such delicate puff-balls seemed a singular diet for back-woodsmen. There was also tea without milk, sweetened with molasses. And so, exchanging a word with John Morrison and his gang when we had returned to the shore, and also exchanging our batteau for a better still, we made haste to improve the little daylight that remained. This camp, exactly twenty-nine miles from Mattawamkeag Point, by the way we had come, and about one hundred from Bangor by the river, was the last human habitation of any kind in this direction. Beyond, there was no trail; and the river and lakes, by batteaux and canoes, was considered the only practicable route. We were about thirty miles by the river from the summit of Ktaadn, which was in sight, though not more than twenty, perhaps, in a straight line. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON HDT WHAT? INDEX

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1851

May 21, Wednesday: Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury of the US Naval Observatory sent his cousin, Lt. William Lewis Herndon and Lt. Lardner Gibbon, both of whom worked at the observatory, to explore the Valley of the Amazon region to Brazil and the Atlantic Ocean, while gathering as much information as possible for trade and slavery in any of those areas. The Negro was a problem! Maury detested race slavery and was hoping that the area might serve as a “safety valve” in American politics, by allowing the Southern white slavemasters to dispose of their obligations by “selling them South” to slave plantations in Brazil, or at least to relocate their plantations to that more distant and therefore less newsworthy locale. “Imagine,” Maury wrote to a cousin, “waking up some day and finding our country free of slavery!” His reasoning was that since the negrero vessels were bringing fresh crops of slaves across the Atlantic to Brazil from the coast of Africa all the time anyhow, if Americans could sell those who were already slaves in the United States south to Brazil then this would not only mean less slavery locally, or in time perhaps no slavery in as many areas of the United States as possible, but would also cut down somewhat on the demand for fresh recruitments of slaves from Africa. Oh, he was such a benign and practical white man! Can’t you see how he was wracking his brain for a good enough way to get rid of people?

The expedition in question would begin at Lima, Peru with the two lieutenants and five other men, 4,366 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. To get to the valley of the Amazon their parties would need first to pass over the Cordilleras, via a pass that rose to an altitude of 16,199 feet.

May 21, Wednesday: Yesterday I made out the black and the white Ashes– A double male White ash in Miles’ swamp and 2 black ashes with sessile leaflets– A female White ash near RR –in Stows land. The White Ashes by Mr Pritchards have no blossoms, at least as yet If I am right the black ash is improperly so called from the color of its bark being lighter than the white– Though it answers to the description in other respects even to the elder-like odor of the leaves, I should like still to see a description of the Yellow Ash which grows in Maine. The day before yesterday I found the male sassafras in abundance but no female. The leaves of my new pine on Merriams or Pine Hill are of intermediate length between those of the Yellow Pine & the Norway Pine– I can find no cone to distinguish the tree by. But as the leaves are semi cylindrical & not hollowed I think it must be the red or Norway Pine –though it does not look very red –& is spruce! answering perhaps to the description of the Yellow Pine which is sometimes called Spruce Pine. To day examined the flowers of the Nemopanthus Canadensis –a genus of a single species says Emerson– It bears the beautiful crimson velvety berry of the swamps –& is what I have heard called the cornel. Common name Wild Holly. I have heard now within a few days that peculiar dreaming sound of the frogs which belongs to the summer – their midsummer nights dream. Only that thought & that expression are good which are musical. I think that we are not commonly aware that man is our contemporary. That in this strange outlandish world – so barren so prosaic –fit not to live in but merely to pass through. that even here so divine a creature as man does actually live. Man the crowning fact –the god we know. While the earth supports so rare an inhabitant there is somewhat to cheer us. Who shall say that there is no God, if there is a just man. It is only within a year that it has occurred to me that there is such a being actually existing on the globe. Now that I perceive that it is so –many questions assume a new aspect. We have not only the idea & vision of the divine ourselves but we have brothers, it seems who have this idea also– Methinks my neighbor is better than I; and his thought is better than mine– There is a representative of the divinity on earth –of all things fair & noble are to be expected. We have the material of heaven here. I think that the standing miracle to man is man –behind the paling –yonder come rain or shine –hope or doubt –there dwells a man. an actual being who can sympathize with our sublimest thoughts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

The revelations of nature are infinitely glorious & cheering –hinting to us of a remote future –of possibilities untold –but startlingly near to us some day we find a fellow man. The frog had eyed the heavens from his marsh, until his mind was filled with visions, & he saw more than belongs to this fenny earth– He mistrusted that he was become a dreamer & visionary –leaping across the swamp to his fellow what was his joy & consolation to find that he too had seen the same sights in the heavens –he too had dreamed the same dreams From nature we turn astonished to this near but supernatural fact I think that the existence of man in nature is the divinest and most startling of all facts– It is a fact which few have realized. I can go to my neighbors & meet on ground as elevated as we could expect to meet upon if we were now in heaven. “And we live, We of this mortal mixture, in the same law As the pure colourless intelligence Which dwells in Heaven, & the dead Hadëan shades.” I do not think that man can –understand the importance of man’s existence –its bearing on the other phenomena of life untill it shall become a remembrance to him the survivor that such a being or such a race once existed on the earth. Imagine yourself alone in the world a musing wondering reflecting spirit lost in thought– And imagine thereafter the creation of man! Man made in the image of God! Looking into a book on dentistry the other day I observed a list of authors who had written on this subject. There were Ran & Tan and Yungerman –& I was impressed by the fact that there was nothing in a name– It was as if they had been named by the child’s rigmarole of Iery ichery van tittle tol tan &c– I saw in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over the earth –and to each one its own herdsman had affixed some barbarous name or sound or syllables, in his own dialect –so in a thousand languages– Their names were seen to be as meaningless exactly as bose or Tray the names of dogs. Men get named no better. We seem to be distinct ourselves, never repeated –& yet we bear no names which express a proportionate distinctness –they are quite accidental.– Take away their names & you leave men a wild herd distinguished only by their individual qualities. It is as if you were to give names in the Caffre dialect to the individuals in a herd of spring-bocks –or Gnus We have but few patronymics –but few Christian names in proportion to the number of us. Is it that men ceased to be original when genuine & original names ceased to be given. Have we not enough character to establish a new patronymic Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross as they are known. It would only be necessary to know the genus & perchance the species & variety –to know the individual. I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me but still see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. I see that this neighbor who wears the familiar epithet of William or Edwin takes it off with his jacket –it does not adhere to him when asleep or when in anger –or aroused by any passion or inspiration– I seem to hear pronounced by some of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw breaking or else melodious tongue– As the names of the Poles and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. Our names are as cheap as the names given to dogs– We know what are dogs names– We know what are men’s names. Some times it would be significant and truer –it would lead to generalization –it would avoid exaggeration –to say There was a man who said or did –instead of designating him by some familiar, but perchance delusive name. We hardly believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own It is interesting to see how the names of famous men are repeated. even of great poets & philosophers. The poet is not know today even by his neighbors to be more than a common man– He is perchance the butt of many The proud farmer looks down –& boorishly ignores him but perchance in course of time the poet will have so succeeded –that some of the farmer’s posterity –though equally boorish with their ancestor will bear the poets name. The boor names his boy Homer & so succumbs unknowingly to the bard’s victorious fame– Anything so fine as poetic genius he cannot more directly recognize. The unpoetic farmer names his child Homer. You have a wild savage in you –and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as yours.2 HDT WHAT? INDEX

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1852

April 11, Easter Sunday: Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon arrived at the port of Pará, Brazil, on the Atlantic seaboard south of the mouths of the Amazon River.

In the afternoon Henry Thoreau walked to Second Division Brook at the West corner of the town.

Professor Robert M. Thorson points up the remarkable fact that in h is journal entry for this day Thoreau “revealed his genius for river-channel hydraulics, something readers of WALDEN would never suspect. In that passage, he described the three-dimensional helicoidal flow responsible for shaping the meandering channel of Nut Meadow Brook, putting him ahead of the state geologist [Edward Hitchcock] in his understanding”: “The sight of Nut Meadow Brook in Brown’s land – reminds me that the attractiveness of a brook depends much on the character of its bottom. I love just now to see one flowing through soft sand like this where it wears a deep but irregular channel – now wider & shallower with distinct ripple marks – now shelving off suddenly to indistinct depths. meandering as much up & down as from side to side.– deepest where narrowest – & ever gullying under this bank or that – its bottom lifted up to one side or the other – the current inclining to one side.” Finally, in the boldest stroke of his inductive genius during the Walden years, Thoreau linked the side-to-side meandering with up-and-down meandering to recognize an even more fundamental type of three-dimensional meandering known as helicoidal flow. This is a corkscrew motion in which the forward-propagating sine curve of momentum rotates around the line of gravitational flow. In this conception, line, wave, and circle become a single entity. This unification took place in Thoreau’s mind on the bank of Nut Meadow Brook on a lovely spring day in 1852 [April 11, 1852 journal entry below] when he noticed the streamlines of flow “meandering as much up and down as from side to side, deepest where narrowest, and ever gullying under this bank or that, its bottom lifted up to one side or the other, the current inclining to one side.” At this point, the only thing Thoreau lacked was the explanation for the helical pattern he was seeing. Still searching a year later, he asks [refer to March 10, 1853 journal entry] “What is the theory of these sudden pitches, or steep shelving places, in the sandy bottom of the brook?” Thoreau’s unwillingness to let go of an observation he 2. Thoreau would later copy into his early lecture “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT”:

[Paragraph 24] Work is cheap, but thought and character are rare. And is it not significant, that after all the farmer will perhaps name his son — Homer, or Milton?1

1. Bradley P. Dean has emended the manuscript copy-text by changing the terminal punctuation in this sentence from a period to a question mark. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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does not fully understand brands him as a curiosity-driven scientist, hardly the trope-seeing transcendentalist he had left behind him a few years earlier.

Professor Thorson also notes an interesting “fractal” mathematics in Thoreau’s illustration of the reflections of maple sapling twigs on the water surface below them:

He goes on, in his Figure 12 on his page 101, to compare and contrast this fractal math of twigs and their reflections with the fractal math seen in Thoreau’s illustrations of (in date sequence) the leaf hoarfrost on January 6, 1853:

the serrated edge of wind-disturbed water on May 14, 1853:

and the embedded crenulations on the top surface of the molars of Mr. Pratt’s muskrat on July 24, 1853:

Thoreau would have made a fine glaciologist, given his quantitative abilities and his obsession with the physical properties of ice and snow. During the cold winter of WALDEN’s completion, he could often be found walking on the frozen Sudbury River where he observed, described, and classified winter phenomenon [refer to journal entry for December 2, 1853]. On New Year’s day of 1854 he was enthralled by snowdrifts. His JOURNAL account of that experience reveals his insights into the continuum mechanics of fluids at steady state, and with the balance of forces involved: “The drifts mark the standstill or equilibrium between the currents of air ... The snow is like a mould, showing the form of the eddying currents of air which have been impressed on it, while the drift and all the rest is that which fell between the currents or where they HDT WHAT? INDEX

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counterbalanced each other.” [refer to journal entry for January 1, 1854] By February he had become intrigued by the crystallography of slab ice, using the mathematical word “tessellation” to characterize the regular spatial packing of large ice crystals on the surface of the Sudbury River, which may have resembled hexagonal floor tiles [refer to journal entry for February 12, 1854]. In early March, a cold snap caused the frozen ground near his house to contract to the threshold of rupture [refer to journal entry for March 4, 1854]. He sketched the resulting fractures with detail and accuracy, and with a pattern identical to those mapped by geologists studying fault zones in the Earth’s crust. Specifically his sketch includes the fractal scaling of enechelon failures.

1 April 11, Sunday: 2 /2 Pm to 2nd Div. Brook. The ground is now for the most part bare – though I went through drifts 3 feet deep in some places. I hear that Simmonds had planted his potatoes!! before the snow a week ago. As I go over the RR. Bridge I hear the Pewee singing Pewet Pewee – Pe-e-wet Pe-e-we-e. The last time rising on the last syllable some times repeating it thus many times Pe-we-e The maple beyond the RR Bridge is not yet in blossom. though that at the Red Bridge is. The sight of Nut Meadow Brook in Brown’s land – reminds me that the attractiveness of a brook depends much on the character of its bottom. I love just now to see one flowing through soft sand like this where it wears a deep but irregular channel – now wider & shallower with distinct ripple marks – now shelving off suddenly to indistinct depths. meandering as much up & down as from side to side.– deepest where narrowest – & ever gullying under this bank or that – its bottom lifted up to one side or the other – the current inclining to one side. I stop to look at the circular shadows of the dimples over the yellow sand–& the dark brown clams on their edges in the sand at the bottom. I hear the sound of the piano below as I write this and feel as if the winter in me were at length beginning to thaw – for my spring has been even more backward than nature’s. For a month past life has been a thing incredible to me. None but the kind gods can make me sane– If only they will let their south winds blow on me. I ask to be melted. You can only ask of the metals that they be tender to the fire that melts them. To nought else can they be tender. The sweet flags are now starting up under water 2 inches high–& minnows dart. A pure brook is a very beautiful object to study minutely – it will bear the closest inspection – even to the fine air bubbles like minute globules of quicksilver that lie on its bottom. The minute particles or spangles of golden mica in these sands when the sun shines on them reminds one of the golden sands we read of.– Everything is washed clean & bright & the water is the best glass through which to see it– I asked W.E.C. yesterday if he had acquired fame. He answered that giving his name at some place the bystanders said– ‘Yes sir, We have heard of you– We know you here sir– Your name is mentioned in Mr. ___’s book.’ That’s all the fame I have had to be made known by another man. Great flocks of slate colored snow-birds still about–& uttering their jingling note in the sun. In the brook behind Jenny Dugans I was pleased to find the Alnus incana (?) in bloom in the water its long sterile aments – yellowish brown hanging in panacles or clusters at the ends of the drooping branchlets – while all the twigs else are bare & the well-cased & handsome leaf buds are not yet expanded at all – it is a kind of resurrection of the year these pliant & pendulous blossoms on this apparently dead bush while all is sere & tawny around, withered & bleached grass. A sort of harbinger of spring – this & the maple blossoms especially & also the early willow catkins. Even these humble & inconspicuous aments are as grateful now as the most beautiful flowers will be 1 a month hence– They are 2 /2 inches long & more. This appears to be more forward and the aments larger than what I take to be the common alder hereabouts. This & the maple & the earliest willow are the most flowerlike now– The skunk cabbage is not yet fairly in blossom nor the may flower– In all the brooks I see the spotted tortoise emys guttata now– –& in some fields & on some hill sides have seen holes apparently dug by turtles– but I have not yet noticed their tracks over the sand. The neat compact catkins of the hazel – fawn-colored? The birches still rather hard. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

If I am too cold for human friendship – I trust I shall not soon be too cold for natural influences. It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man & nature. Those qualities which bring you near to the one estrange you from the other. 2nd Div. Brook– This is of similar character, but deeper than Nut Meadow Brook. It is pleasant that there be on a brook the remains of an old flume or dam or causeway as here – overgrown with trees – & whose rocks make stepping stones– Large skaters & small black water bugs are out now on the surface– Now then migrating fishes may come up the streams– The expanding may-flower buds show a little pinkish tint under the snow– The cress is apparently all last years– The cowslip does not yet spring– Very little change in anything since I was last here. Is that the viburnum lentago with the spear shaped buds?

They have cut down the black aspens that used to stand on the white Pond road – the Dantean trees. 1 1 Thought I heard a snipe or an owl. White Pond about /4 or /5 open at the north end. NB A man who passed Walden today says it is melted 2 rods wide on N. side Here are large flocks of fringilla hiemalis in the stubble. Every man will be a poet if he can – otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet. It is hard for a man to take money from his friends for any service– This suggests how all men should be related. –Ah! when a man has travelled, and robbed the horizon of his native fields of its mystery & poetry – its indefinite promise – tarnished the blue of distant Mts with his feet!! When he has done this he may begin to think of another world – what is this longer to him? I see now the mosses now in pastures bearing their light colored capsules on the top of red filaments. When I reach the bridge – it is become a serene evening – the broad waters are more & more smooth–& everything is more beautiful in the still light. The view toward Fair Haven whose woods are now cut off is beautiful. No obvious sign of spring– The hill now dimly reflected – the air not yet quite still– The wood on conantum abuts handsomely on the water–& can ill be spared– The ground on which it stands is not level as seen from this point but pleasantly varied & swelling – which is important. (Before my neighbors pig is cold his boys have made a football of his bladder!) So goes the world. No matter how much the boy snivles at first – he kicks the bladder with extacy.) This is the still evening hour – insects in the air The black birds whistle & sing “conqueree” the robin peeps & sings – the blue bird [Eastern Bluebird Sialia sialis] warbles.– The light of the setting sun on the pitch pines on Fair Haven & Bear Hill lights them up warmly – for the rays fall horizontally on them through the mellow evening atmosphere– They do not HDT WHAT? INDEX

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appear so bright to us at noon. nor do they now to the hawk that comes soaring sluggishly over them – (the brown & dusky bird seen even from beneath) Of course the pines seen from above have now more of the evening shades in them than seen from the earth on one side. The catkins of the willow are silvery. The shadow of the wood named above at the river end is indispensable in this scene – and what is remarkable I see where it has reached across the river and is creeping up the hill with dark pointed spears – though the intermediate river is all sunny– The reflection of the sunny hill covered with withered grass being seen through the invisible shadow. A river is best seen breaking through highlands – issuing from some narrow pass– It imparts a sense of power. The shadow at the end of the wood makes it appear grander in this case. The serenity & warmth are the main thing after the windy & cool days we have had. You may even hear a fish leap in the water now. The lowing of a cow advances me many weeks towards summer. The reflections grow more distinct every moment.– At last the outline of the hill is as distinct below as above. And every object appears rhymed by reflection By partly closing my eyes & looking through my eyelashes – the wood end appears thus

Now the shadow reaching across the river has crept so far up the hill that I see its reflection on the hill side in the water–& in this way it may at length connect itself with its source. Clouds are now distinctly seen in the water. The bridge is now a station for walkers. I parted with my companion here, told him not to wait for me. Maple in the swamp answers to maple birch to birch. There is one clump of 3 birches particularly picturesque

In a few minutes the wind has thus gone down. At this season the reflections of deciduous trees are more picturesque and remarkable than when they are in leaf – because the branches being seen they make with their reflections a more wonderful rhyme– It is not mere mass or outline corresponding to outline but a kind of geometrical figure. The maples look thus &c

The twilight must to the extent above mentioned – be earlier to birds soaring in the sky, i.e. they see more decided shades of evening than a man looking east. The Frogs peep thinly. My nature may be as still as this water – but it is not so pure & its reflections are not so distinct. The snow has turned yellow the opening leaves of the Nuphar. The song of a robin on an oak in Hubbard’s Grove sounds far off – so I have heard a robin within 3 feet in a cage in a dark bar room (how unstained by all the filth of that place!) with a kind of ventriloquism so singing that his song sounded far off on the elms. It was more pathetic still for this. The robins are singing now on all hands while the sun is setting. At what an expense any valuable HDT WHAT? INDEX

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work is performed – at the expense of a life. If you do one thing well what else are you good for in the meanwhile?

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

William Lewis Herndon “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

1853

William Lewis Herndon’s volume, the 1st volume, of EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON, MADE UNDER DIRECTION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT was published in the District of Columbia by Robert Armstrong, Public Printer. Henry Thoreau would copy from this into his Indian Notebook #8:

LT. HERNDON’S AMAZON HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

“LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE”: Lieutenant Herndon, whom our Government sent to explore the Amazon, and, it is said, to extend the area of Slavery, observed that there was wanting there “an industrious and active population, who know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the great resources of the country.” But what are the artificial wants to be encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and slaves of, I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice and granite and other material wealth of our native New England; nor are “the great resources of a country” that fertility or barrenness of soil which produces these. The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This alone draws out “the great resources” of Nature, and at last taxes her beyond her resources; for man naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men, –those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers. HDT WHAT? INDEX

CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

January 26, Wednesday: Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon delivered his report about the Amazon basin to the Secretary of the Navy, John P. Kennedy. It would be printed during this year in the District of Columbia by Robert Armstrong, Public Printer as EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON, MADE UNDER DIRECTION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT. LT. HERNDON’S AMAZON

January 26th: Upriver on ice 9 Am above Pantry. A sharp cutting air – This is a pretty good winter morning however – Not one of the rarer. There are from time to time mornings – both in summer & winter when especially the world seems to begin anew – beyond which memory need not go – for not behind them is yesterday and our past life – when as in the morning of a hoar frost there are visible the effects of a certain creative energy – the world has visibly been recreated in the night – mornings of creation I call them. In the midst of these marks of a creative energy recently active – while the sun is rising with more than usual HDT WHAT? INDEX

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splendor I look back – I look back for the era of this creation not into the night but to a dawn for which no man ever rose early enough. A morning which carries us back beyond the Mosaic creation – where crystallizations are fresh & unmelted. It is the poet’s hour. Mornings when men are new born – men who have the seeds of life in them. It should be a part of my religion to abroad then. This is not one of those mornings – but a clear cold airy winter day. It is surprising how much room there is in nature, – if a man will follow his proper path – – In these broad fields – In these extensive woods – on this stretching river I never meet a walker – – passing behind the farmhouses I see no man out – Perhaps I do not meet so many men as I should have met 3 centuries ago when the Indian hunter roamed these woods – I enjoy the retirement & solitude of an early settler – Men have cleared some of the earth which no doubt is an advantage to the walker – I see a man sometimes chopping in the woods – or planting or hoeing in a field – at a distance – & yet there may be a lyceum in the evening & there is a bookshop & library in the village. & 5 times a day I can be whirled to Boston within an hour. There is a little thin yellow ice on the meadows. I see the bubbles underneath looking like coin. A slight fine snow has fallen in the night & drifted before the wind – I observe that it is so distributed over the ice as show equal spaces of bare ice & of snow at pretty regular distances – I have seen the same phenomenon on the surface of snow in fields as if the surface of the snow disposed itself according to the same law that makes waves of water. There is now a fine steam-like snow blowing over the ice – which continully lodges here & there & forthwith a little drift accumulates – But why does it lodge at such regular intervals – I see this fine drifting snow in the air 10 or 12 feet high at a distance. Perhaps it may have to do with the manner in or the angle at – which the wind strikes the earth. Made a roaring fire on the edge of the meadow at Ware(?) Hill in Sudbury – A piece of paper Birch bark & dry leaves started it – & then we depended on the dead maple twigs & limbs to kindle the larger dead wood. Green wood will burn better than the damp & rotten wood that lies on the ground. We chose a place which afforded a prospect – but it turned out that we looked only at the fire – It made all places indifferent. The color of the coals – in a glowing heap or seen through the white ashes on the brands – like rubies – The shadows coming & going of the flame passing over the white ashes – of the brands – I burnt off my eyelashes when the fire suddenly blazed up with the wind – without knowing that I had come very near it. Though our fuel was dead & rotten wood found in the snow It made very little smoke which may have been owing to the state of the atmosphere clear & cold – The sound of the air or steam escaping from a brand – its sighing or dying shriek – fine & sharp as a cambric needle – is the music we hear – One half the pleasure is in making the fire. But then we should have something to cook by it. Collecting fresh fuel from time to time is very pleasant. The smoke ever-& anon compelled us to move round to the opposite side. The sap which flowed from some maple boughs which I cut froze in large drops at the end. How came sap there now? It is remarkable that many men will go with eagerness to Walden Pond in the winter to fish for pickerel – & yet not seem to care for the landscape. Of course it cannot be merely for the pickerel they may catch – There is some adventure in it – but any love of nature which they may feel is certainly very slight & indefinite. They call it going a fishing & so indeed it it is, though perchance their natures know better – Now I go a fishing & a hunting every day but omit the fish & the game – which are the least important part – I have learned to do without them. They were indispensable only as long as I was a boy – I am encouraged when I see a dozen villagers drawn to walden pond to spend a day in fishing through the ice – & suspect that I have more fellows than I knew, but I am disappointed & surprised to find that they lay so much stress on the fish – which they catch or fail to catch & on nothing else. as if there were nothing else to be caught. When we got off at some distance from our fire returning – We saw a light bluish smoke rising as high as the woods above it, though, we had not perceived it before, & thought that no one could have detected us. At the fall on Clematis Brook the forms of the ice were admirable – the coarse spray had frozen as it fell on the rocks – & formed shell like crusts over them, with irregular but beautifully clear & sparkling surfaces like eggshaped diamonds

each being the top of a clubshaped & branched fungus icicle – This spray had improved the least core as the dead & slender rushes drooping over the water & formed larger icicles about them shaped exactly like horns HDT WHAT? INDEX

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with the skulls often attached – or roots of horns –

on similar slight hints then were built out from the shore & rocks all sorts of fantastic forms with broader & flatter bases from which hung stalactites of ice and on logs in the water were perfect ice fungi of all sizes

under which the water gurgled flat underneath & hemispherical. A form like this would project over the water

Looking down on it six or 7 inches deep by 4 or 5 in width & a foot long held by the rocks but with a slight weed for core. You could take off the incrustations on the rocks – turn them up & they were perfect shells –

These are the horns a foot or 2 high.

In the rock incrustations there were upright clubshaped icicles as I have said packed close together 3 or 4 inches long thus

and so or right & left with a homogeneous or undivided base. They appeared like crystallizations as quartz crystals with rounded instead of flattend summits. – built up from below and as they {open,} widening or thickening to fill the space. The only birds I have seen today were some jays – one whistled clearly – some of my mewing red frontlets – & some familiar chickadees. They are inquisitive & fly along after the traveller to inspect him. In civilized nations there are those answering to the rain makers & sorcerers of savages – – Also this office is universal among savage tribes – Bitter cutting cold NW wind on causeway stiffening the face – freezing the ears. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1854

Lardner Gibbon’s portion, the 2d volume, of EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON, MADE UNDER DIRECTION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT was published in the District of Columbia. This also would be in the personal library of Henry Thoreau, although I don’t think Thoreau ever commented on Lieutenant Gibbon’s part of the journey.

LT. GIBBON’S AMAZON HDT WHAT? INDEX

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WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

April 21, Friday: William Lloyd Garrison, in his review for The Liberator (page 2, columns 3-4) “Exploration of the Amazon, and Designs of the Slave Power” of William Lewis Herndon’s and Lardner Gibbon’s EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON, opinioned as to the base motives that lay behind all this activity. Was it not that “the prime motive” for such an exploration of the swampy jungle would be “to discover new fields and open new resources for the Slave Power, whereby its domains shall be illimitable, and its existence perpetuated as long as a tropical soil and climate can endure its pestiferous presence”? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In the afternoon Henry Thoreau walked to Saw Mill Brook. He made an entry in his journal that he was later to copy into his early lecture “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” as:

[Paragraph 41] The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other men?—if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom work in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed by her example? Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life? Is she merely the miller who grinds the finest logic? It is pertinent to ask if Plato got his living in a better way or more successfully than his contemporaries,—or did he succumb to the difficulties of life like other men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live, because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life,—chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.

April 21. A.M. – Heard the bay-wing^ one of the seringos sparrow in the redeemed meadows. None yesterday morning. At a distance hear only the end of its strain, like the ring of a small piece of steel dropped on an anvil. A few F. hyemalis still about. Are not those little whorls of black pointed scales the female blossom of the Thuya occidentalis? Scarcely an April shower yet. How can a man be a wise man, if he does n’t know any better how to live than other men? —if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom work in a treadmill? Does Wisdom fail? or does she teach how to succeed by her example? Is she merely the miller who grinds the finest logic? Did Plato get his living in a better way or more successfully than his contemporaries? Did he succumb to the difficulties of life like other HDT WHAT? INDEX

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men? Did he merely prevail over them by indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live because his aunt remembered him in her will?

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. As I was handling the arbor-vitæ to-day, an odor like strawberries came from [it]. Is that terebinthine? The lilac is beginning to open to-day. The snows go off and the lustre of the wintergreen is undiminished. The large black ants are at work on their hills. The great scalloped leaf betrays the P. grandidentata. How silent and deserted the woods are! I do not fairly see a chickadee even. Snow with its tracks would make it seem more inhabited. How we prize any redness on the ground! — a red stain in a stone or even a coxcomb lichen on a stump! The hellebore at the brook has shot up six or eight inches with its compact bundles and will soon catch the cabbage. It is now one of the most forward plants. That gooseberry at the brook is the most forward shrub or tree at present that I can find out of doors in Concord. [Added later: Excepting the spiræa.] [Added later yet: The thimble-berry in some places equally forward, and perhaps the honeysuckle vine.] It shows more of a leaf than the lilac or Missouri currant, which may come nest. As I go up the hill beyond the brook, while the hylodes are heard behind, I perceive the faintest possible flowerlike scent as from the earth, reminding me of anemonies and houstonias. Can it be the budded mouse-ears under my feet? Downy-swaddled, they lie along flat to the earth like a child on its mother’s bosom. I sit on a rock awhile just below the old trough. These are those early times when the rich golden-brown tassels of the alders tremble over the brooks — and not a leaf on their twigs. We are far north with Sir John Franklin. I see the first of that bent lake grass on the smooth surface of a flooded meadow, with a dimple at its stern. It is a warm sight. The fruit of the O. spectabilis(?), flowering fern, still perfect. I see on the red cedar the male blossom buds not yet quite open, and very minute hollows with whitish scales at the ends of some of the branchlets, which I take to be the female flowers. The song of the purple finch on the elms (he also frequents firs and spruce) is rich and continuous, like, but fainter and more rapid than, that of a robin, — some of the cherruwit in it and a little of the warble of the martin. A martin was found dead the 18th after the snows, and many bluebirds in Brookfield.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

William Lewis Herndon “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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June 8, Thursday: In the afternoon, Henry Thoreau went up the river. Reports from Boston of the Anthony Burns affair began to furnish material for “Slavery in Massachusetts.” Thoreau made an entry in his journal that he was later to copy into his early lecture “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” as:

[Paragraph 55] Lieutenant Herndon, whom our Government sent to explore the Amazon, and, it is said, to extend the area of Slavery,1 observed that there was wanting there “an industrious and active population, who know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the great resources of the country.” But what are the “artificial wants” to be encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and slaves of, I believe, his native Virginia,2 nor the ice and granite and other material wealth of our native New England; nor are “the great resources of a country” that fertility or barrenness of soil which produces these. The chief want is ever a life of deep experiences, — that is, character.3 This alone draws out “the great resources” of Nature, and at last taxes her beyond her resources, for man naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men, those rare fruits called, heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.

1. William Lloyd Garrison, in his review of Herndon’s book, charged that “the prime motive” of the exploration of the Amazon was “to discover new fields and open new resources for the Slave Power, whereby its domains shall be illimitable, and its existence perpetuated as long as a tropical soil and climate can endure its pestiferous presence” (“Exploration of the Amazon, and Designs of the Slave Power,” Liberator, 21 April 1854, page 2, columns 3-4). 2. Herndon was from Fredericksburg, Virginia. 3. This sentence is taken from the journal source of this paragraph. Preceding this sentence is essay copy-text; after it is manuscript copy-text. Authority for the inclusion of the sentence at this point is derived from the journal source and the sentence “The chief want is ever a life of deep experiences — that is — character, which alone draws out Nature and at last goes beyond her” in the Nantucket Inquirer summary.

We may note that this entry indicates that he had been reading in a set of volumes that according to an inscription inside had been presented to him by Horace Mann, Sr., to wit: William Lewis Herndon (Part I) and Lardner Gibbon (Part II), EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON, MADE UNDER DIRECTION OF THE NAVY DEPARTMENT, BY WM. LEWIS HERNDON AND LARDNER GIBBON, LIEUTENANTS UNITED STATES NAVY (Washington: Robert Armstrong, Public Printer, Part I, 1853; A.O.P. Nicholson, Public Printer, Part II, 1854).3

Thoreau also made an entry that he would later copy into “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” as:

[Paragraph 56] What we name civilization does not yet substitute this for the barren simplicity of the savage.

3. In the absence of some specific indication, we should beware any presumption that this gift indicated the existence of some particular bond between Mann, Sr. and Thoreau. The fact is that due to the largesse of members of the federal congress in playing games with your tax dollars, at this moment there happened to be literally thousands of freebee copies of this expensive government report in float across the nation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

June 8. Thursday. A.M. — Gentle, steady rainstorm. The Rosa nitida bud which I plucked yesterday has blossomed to-day, so that, notwithstanding the rain, I will put it down to to-day.

P.M. — On river. Sidesaddle, apparently to-morrow (?). Earliest and common potamogeton. Erigeron strigosus slowly opening, perhaps to-morrow. [Vide 14th.] Meadow-rue, with its rank dog-like scent. Ribwort plantain is abundantly in bloom, fifteen or sixteen inches high; how long? Utricularia vulgaris. Young robins in nest. Herndon, in his “Exploration of the Amazon,” says that “there is wanting an industrious and active population, who know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the great resources of the country.” But what are the “artificial wants” to be encouraged, and the “great resources” of a country? Surely not the love of luxuries like the tobacco and slaves of his native(?) Virginia, or that fertility of soil which produces these. The chief want is ever a life of deep experiences, — that is, character, — which alone draws out “the great resources” of Nature. When our wants cease to be chiefly superficial and trivial, which is commonly meant by artificial, and begin to be wants of character, then the great resources of a country are taxed and drawn out, and the result, the staple production, is poetry. Have the “great resources” of Virginia been drawn out by such “artificial wants” as there exist? Was that country really designed by its Maker to produce slaves and tobacco, or something more even than freemen and food for freemen? Wants of character, aspirations, — this is what is wanted; but what is called civilization does not always substitute this for the barren simplicity of the savage. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1855

Matthew Fontaine Maury’s SAILING DIRECTIONS.

THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. BY M.F. MAURY, LL.D., LIEUT. U.S. NAVY, SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED AND IMPROVED (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 329 & 331 Pearl Street, Franklin Square) — Henry Thoreau would obtain this volume from the Concord Town Library in about 1856, and make notes in his Fact Book. MAURY’S SEA GEOGRAPHY

Lt. Maury’s team at the US Naval Observatory included Lt. James Melville Gilliss, Lt. John Mercer Brooke, Lt. William Lewis Herndon, Lt. Isaac Strain, Lt. Lardner Gibbon, John Herndon Maury of the Darien Gap expedition, and others — but duty at the Observatory was always temporary, and over and over new men would need to be trained.

November: In accordance with an Act of Congress requiring that all mail steamships be under the command of a captain of the US Navy (remember, the past is a foreign country!), Captain William Lewis Herndon was assigned command of the commercial mail steamboat George Law. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1857

September 11, Friday: At Mountain Meadows in what is now southwestern Utah, during the Utah War between Mormons and the United States government over non-Mormon settlement of Utah, Mormons and allied native tribes killed 120 emigrants bound from Arkansas for California across the transverse ranges of the high desert.

This had been a wagon train of rather wealthy farming families, the Baker/Fancher party, perhaps the wealthiest such group ever, and at first seemed to have been intercepted by a warrior band of Paiute native Americans. However, the attackers had been surprisingly heavily armed with rifles and pistols and had an unusual abundance of shot and powder, rather than being equipped as was ordinarily the case with mere bows and arrows plus an occasional decrepit firearm with minuscule quantities of lead and gunpowder! These wealthy travelers had even been sporting personal jewelry, and had brought with them 1,000 head of longhorns, the first such to be seen in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake. They had made themselves a most tempting target. After a 4-day standoff the people of the wagon train had agreed to a truce and to a surrender of their arms. This had turned out to be a ploy and, after being disarmed, on this day the Baker/Fancher party was attacked at close range with clubs, knives, and guns at point-blank range. In less than five minutes 120 of them lay dead. There were 17 under the age of eight (the age of innocence in the Mormon religion) and these were spared for adoption into Mormon families. As the bodies of their parents were being stripped of clothing and jewelry the children watched some of these attackers wipe off their paint, revealing themselves as white men. (The members of the Paiute tribe who had participated would soon disband and aggregate themselves to other tribal groups to evade detection and punishment for their participation. In December, Brigham Young would cynically invoice the United States federal government for $3,527.43 for “articles furnished sundry

bands of Indians near Mountain Meadows” by Salt Lake City merchant Levi Stewart in a distribution that Lee and Dimick Huntington, certified “on honor” that they had personally witnessed –171 pairs of pants, 135 shirts, 39½ pounds of gunpowder, 109 pounds of lead, 14,000 firing caps, steers, clothing, and butcher knives– that had in fact been mere spoils gathered up after the slaughter.) It is probable that this action had been directly ordered by Young himself, who had sent his adopted son John D. Lee to create an incident that would point out to the US government that Utah was not part of its national domain. Over the following years the children, adopted by local Mormon families, would see various items of their relatives’ clothing and various pieces of their relatives’ jewelry being worn by Mormons. (Finally the children would be repatriated to surviving relatives, and John D. Lee would be executed by firing squad. Geoffrey Ward would term this massacre “the most hideous example of the human cost exacted by religious fanaticism in American history until 9/11.”) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Commander William Lewis Herndon had been in charge of the mail steamboat that had come to bear the name SS Central America for a total of 18 voyages. On the 19th, one that had begun at the port of Colón, Panama on September 3d, at 9AM, beginning the 2d day of enduring an Atlantic hurricane, the old vessel sprang multiple leaks. Passengers would assist the crew in bailing, to no avail.

September 11, Friday. Up railroad and to Clamshell. Solidago puberula apparently in prime, with the S. stricta, near gerardia oaks. Red choke-berry ripe; how long? On the east edge of Dennis Swamp, where I saw the strange warbler once. To my surprise I find, by the black oaks at the sandhole east of Clamshell, the Solidago rigida, apparently in prime or a little past. The heads and rays were so large I thought at first it must be a hieracium. The rays are from ten to fourteen, and three to three and a half fortieths of an inch wide. The middle leaves are clasping by a heart-shaped base. The heads are seven fortieths of an inch wide and seventeen fortieths long, in recurved panicles, –these. Eaton says truly, “Scales of the calyx round-obtuse, nerved, membranous at the edges.” My old S. stricta (early form) must be S. aryuta var. juncea. It is now done.4

4. The 5th edition of Professor Eaton’s A MANUAL OF BOTANY FOR THE NORTHERN STATES, published in 1829, was what was available to Henry Thoreau in the library of Waldo Emerson. AMOS EATON’S BOTANY HDT WHAT? INDEX

WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON CAPTAIN WILLIAM LEWIS HERNDON

September 12, Saturday, about 9PM: Due primarily to a leak in one of the seals to the vessel’s paddle wheels, and inability to maintain fire in the vessel’s boiler, it was no longer possible to keep the steamer SS Central America headed into the 105-mph winds of the Category 2 hurricane. As the ship settled by the stern, desperately, the ship’s flag was turned upside down as a signal of distress — but for 30 hours no other vessel was near (the brig Marine would eventually arrive, and then the bark Ellen, but together these two small vessels could contain only the women and children and a few of the male passengers, for a total of 153 lucky ones out of 578, many of whom had been coming from the gold rush in California guarding belts filled with gold). Also aboard was a gross cargo of 21 tons of gold, valued then at $1,600,000. The steamboat went to the bottom about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

The ship’s skipper, Commander William Lewis Herndon, went down with his ship in full uniform by the HDT WHAT? INDEX

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wheelhouse, of course unable to leave while anyone was as yet unrescued. He had handed off his watch asking that it be given to his wife. Then, since without this bullion they were unable to meet payrolls or pay creditors, various banks in New-York would fail, and stores and factories would also begin to shut their doors. There would be financial panic both in the US and in Europe: the “Panic of 1857.”

Here’s what Henry Thoreau would write to H.G.O. Blake upon reading about the event: Some of those who sank with the steamer the other day found out that money was heavy too. Think of a man’s priding himself on this kind of wealth, as if it greatly enriched him. As if one struggling in mid-ocean with a bag of gold on his back should gasp out, “I am worth a hundred thousand dollars.” I see them struggling just as ineffectually on dry land, nay, even more hopelessly, for, in the former case, rather, than sink, they will finally let the bag go; but in the latter they are pretty sure to hold and go down with it. I see them swimming about in their great-coats, collecting their rents, really getting their dues, drinking bitter draughts which only increase their thirst, becoming more and more water-logged, till finally they sink plumb down to the bottom.

The remains of one of the strongboxes recovered A cleaned up 1856-S Double Eagle at the wreck of the SS Central America from the wreck

September 12, Saturday: P.M. — To Owl Swamp (Farmer’s). In an open part of the swamp, started a very large wood frog, which gave one leap and squatted still. I put down HDT WHAT? INDEX

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my finger, and, though it shrank a little at first, it permitted me to stroke it as long as I pleased. Having passed, it occurred to me to return and cultivate its acquaintance. To my surprise, it allowed me to slide my hand under it and lift it up, while it squatted cold and moist on the middle of my palm, panting naturally. I brought it close to my eye and examined it. It was very beautiful seen thus nearly, not the dull dead-leaf color which I had imagined, but its back was like burnished bronze armor defined by a varied line on each side, where, as it seemed, the plates of armor united. It had four or five dusky bars which matched exactly when the legs were folded, showing that the painter applied his brush to the animal when in that position, and reddish-orange soles to its delicate feet. There was a conspicuous dark-brown patch along the side of the head, whose upper edge passed directly through the eye horizontally, just above its centre, so that the pupil and all below were dark and the upper portion of the iris golden. I have since taken up another in the same way.5 Round-leaved cornel berries nearly all fallen. Crossing east through the spruce swamp, I think that I saw a female redstart. What is that running herbaceous vine which forms a dense green mat a rod across at the bottom of the swamp northwest of Corallorhiza Rock?6 It is of the same form, stem and leaves, with the more brown hairy and woolly linnaea. It also grows in the swamp by the beech trees in Lincoln.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

5. Indeed they can generally be treated so. Some are reddish, as burnished copper. 6. It is chrysosplenium. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: November 10, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.