ISAAC SPRAGUE

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

SPRAGUE COLLECTION

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Isaac Sprague

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September 5, Thursday: Isaac Sprague was born in Hingham, Massachusetts. He would be apprenticed to his uncle, a carriage painter, and eventually would become a self-taught landscape, botanical, and ornithological illustrator. He would, for instance, create the illustrations for George B. Emerson’s 1846 REPORT ON THE TREES AND SHRUBS GROWING NATURALLY IN THE FORESTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

5th day 5 of 9 Mo// Our meeting was to me a good one, being favor’d with quiet ability to labor for life — C R expressed a few Words.After Meeting I went to Middletown & dined at Elijah Anthony’s & from thence to John Goulds house to attend his funeral, which was large & the setting was silent. I took tea with cousin George Gould & Wife & then came home Cousin George lives at the late residence of my cousin Alice Gould deceased widow of Thomas, & I hope I may find in visiting him & his family a renewal of the same love which closely united me with those of my late dear Cousins. The Ancients of our family are Swiftly passing to the grave, the house appointed for all living, & that the younger generation may not only equal them but far exceed them in Grace & goodness is the sincere desire of my soul

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NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1811

Isaac Sprague “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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The Reverend Alonzo Potter, D.D., Bishop of Pennsylvania, wrote the initial part and George Barrell Emerson the final part of THE SCHOOL AND THE SCHOOLMASTER, published in this year in New-York. There would soon, by donation, be a copy of this available in each and every public school in the state of New York, and in the state of Massachusetts.

Isaac Sprague illustrated Professor Asa Gray’s BOTANICAL TEXT-BOOK.

Augustus Addison Gould became a corresponding member of Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab of Copenhagen, Denmark, and of the Imperial Mineralogical Society of St. Petersburg, Russia. He became a

1842

SCHOOL AND SCHOOLMASTER

BOTANICAL TEXT-BOOK

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regular contributor to the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History.

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.

PROC. BOST. SOC. NAT. HIST.PROCEEDINGS, FOR 1842

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Isaac Sprague

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Isaac Sprague, inspired by Professor Thomas Nuttall’s A MANUAL OF THE ORNITHOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF CANADA (Cambridge: Hilliard and Brown; Boston: Hilliard, Gray, four volumes 1832-1834), had been drawing the birds of eastern Massachusetts,

and his work had come to the attention of John James Audubon. Isaac was invited to be one of Audubon’s assistants on an expedition up the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers through the Dakotas, taking measurements and making preparatory sketches for the mammal series now called THE VIVIPAROUS

1843

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QUADRUPEDS OF NORTH AMERICA. (Henry Thoreau would have a copy of this in his personal library.)

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

VIVIPAROUS QUADRUPEDS

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Isaac Sprague

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Isaac Sprague met Professor Asa Gray of Harvard College. Over the years he would illustrate a number of the professor’s works, such as, in 1856, the 2d edition of his MANUAL OF THE BOTANY OF THE NORTHERN UNITED STATES, in 1848-1849, 186 plates for his GENERA FLORAE AMERICAE BOREALI-ORIENTALIS, and in 1857, the atlas for his “Botany. Phanerogamia” in Charles Wilkes’s UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION DURING THE YEARS 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, AND 1842. He would also illustrate Professor Asa Gray’s and John Torrey’s various volumes of the US War Department’s REPORTS OF EXPLORATIONS AND SURVEYS, TO ASCERTAIN THE MOST PRACTICABLE AND ECONOMICAL ROUTE FOR A RAILROAD ROUTE FROM THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN (1855-1860).

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1844

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Isaac Sprague

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In addition to his studies at the Theological College, with the approval and encouragement of the abbot of the monastery at Brünn, Franz Cyrill Napp (1792-1867), Gregor Mendel attended lectures on fruit-growing and viticulture. Napp, who had written a manual on plant breeding, was also chairman of the Pomological Association, and served on the committee of the local Agricultural Society. The lectures were delivered at the Brünn Philosophical Institute by Professor Franz Diebl (1770-1859), who was well-known for his articles and books about plant breeding.

From this year until 1864, the 5 volumes of Professor Sir William Jackson Hooker’s SPECIES FILICUM (THE SPECIES OF FERNS).

Some of the conservationist insights which would be presented in the following year by George Perkins Marsh before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont were elaborated in George B. Emerson’s A REPORT ON THE TREES AND SHRUBS GROWING NATURALLY IN THE FORESTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. PUBLISHED AGREEABLY TO AN ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE, BY THE COMMISSIONERS ON THE ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL SURVEY OF THE STATE was published in Boston

1846

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(Dutton and Wentworth, State Printers, No. 37, Congress Street) with illustrations by Isaac Sprague.

A copy of this would be in Henry Thoreau’s personal library and a snippet from page 511 about the “flexibility, lightness, and resiliency” of the wood of the Tilia Americana, also called the basswood, or lime, or linden tree, would find its way into A WEEK.

EMERSON’S TREES/SHRUBS

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DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

August 27, Thursday: Hannah Sprague was born to Isaac Sprague and Hannah Colbath Sprague.

Margaret Fuller reported to the New-York Tribune her travels from Chester to the Lake Country of England, meeting William Wordsworth at Rydal Mount (some 300 such uninvited tourists were appearing at this cottage each year and it was usually the case that as they passed through one or another attendant would politely bring their names to the poet’s attention) — and after her death this would appear in AT HOME AND ABROAD:

Ambleside. Westmoreland, 27th August, 1846.I forgot to mention, in writing of Chester, an object which gaveme pleasure. I mentioned, that the wall which enclosed the oldtown was two miles in circumference; far beyond this stretches

A WEEK: (September 2, Monday, 1839) The bass, Tilia Americana,also called the lime or linden, which was a new tree to us,overhung the water with its broad and rounded leaf, interspersedwith clusters of small hard berries now nearly ripe, and made anagreeable shade for us sailors. The inner bark of this genus isthe bast, the material of the fisherman’s matting, and the ropesand peasant’s shoes of which the Russians make so much use, andalso of nets and a coarse cloth in some places. According topoets, this was once Philyra, one of the Oceanides. The ancientsare said to have used its bark for the roofs of cottages, forbaskets, and for a kind of paper called Philyra. They also madebucklers of its wood, “on account of its flexibility, lightness,and resiliency.” It was once much used for carving, and is stillin demand for sounding-boards of piano-fortes and panels ofcarriages, and for various uses for which toughness andflexibility are required. Baskets and cradles are made of thetwigs. Its sap affords sugar, and the honey made from its flowersis said to be preferred to any other. Its leaves are in somecountries given to cattle, a kind of chocolate has been made ofits fruit, a medicine has been prepared from an infusion of itsflowers, and finally, the charcoal made of its wood is greatlyvalued for gunpowder.

CHOCOLATE

LINDEN TREE

Isaac Sprague “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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the modern part of Chester, and the old gateways now overarchthe middle of long streets. This wall is now a walk for theinhabitants, commanding a wide prospect, and three persons couldwalk abreast on its smooth flags. We passed one of its oldpicturesque towers, from whose top Charles the First, poor,weak, unhappy king, looked down and saw his troops defeated bythe Parliamentary army on the adjacent plain. A little fartheron, one of these picturesque towers is turned to the use of aMuseum, whose stock, though scanty, I examined with singularpleasure, for it had been made up by truly filial contributionsfrom, all who had derived benefit from Chester, from the Marquisof Westminster —whose magnificent abode, Eton Hall, lies not faroff— down to the merchant’s clerk, who had furnished it in hisleisure hours with a geological chart, the soldier and sailor,who sent back shells, insects, and petrifactions from theirdistant wanderings, and a boy of thirteen, who had made, in wood,a model of its cathedral, and even furnished it with a bell toring out the evening chimes. Many women had been busy in fillingthese magazines for the instruction and the pleasure of theirfellow-townsmen. Lady ——, the wife of the captain of thegarrison, grateful for the gratuitous admission of the soldiersonce a month, —a privilege of which the keeper of the Museum (awoman also, who took an intelligent pleasure in her task)assured me that they were eager to avail themselves,— had givena fine collection of butterflies, and a ship. An untiringdiligence had been shown in adding whatever might stimulate orgratify imperfectly educated minds. I like to see women perceivethat there are other ways of doing good besides making clothesfor the poor or teaching Sunday-school; these are well, if welldirected, but there are many other ways, some as sure and surer,and which benefit the giver no less than the receiver.I was waked from sleep at the Chester Inn by a loud disputebetween the chambermaid and an unhappy elderly gentleman, whoinsisted that he had engaged the room in which I was, hadreturned to sleep in it, and consequently must do so. To herassurances that the lady was long since in possession, he wasdeaf; but the lock, fortunately for me, proved a strongerdefence. With all a chambermaid’s morality, the maiden boastedto me, “He said he had engaged 44, and would not believe me whenI assured him it was 46; indeed, how could he? I did not believemyself.” To my assurance that, if I had known the room, was his,I should not have wished for it, but preferred taking a worse,I found her a polite but incredulous listener.Passing from Liverpool to Lancaster by railroad, that convenientbut most unprofitable and stupid way of travelling, we theretook the canal-boat to Kendal, and passed pleasantly through acountry of that soft, that refined and cultivated loveliness,which, however much we have heard of it, finds the American eye— accustomed to so much wildness, so much rudeness, such acorrosive action of man upon nature — wholly unprepared. I feelall the time as if in a sweet dream, and dread to be presentlyawakened by some rude jar or glare; but none comes, and here in

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Westmoreland — but wait a moment, before we speak of that.In the canal-boat we found two well-bred English gentlemen, andtwo well-informed German gentlemen, with whom we had someagreeable talk. With one of the former was a beautiful youth,about eighteen, whom I supposed, at the first glance, to be atype of that pure East-Indian race whose beauty I had never seenrepresented before except in pictures; and he made a picture,from which I could scarcely take my eyes a moment, and from itcould as ill endure to part. He was dressed in a broadcloth roberichly embroidered, leaving his throat and the upper part of hisneck bare, except that he wore a heavy gold chain. A rich shawlwas thrown gracefully around him; the sleeves of his robe wereloose, with white sleeves below. He wore a black satin cap. Thewhole effect of this dress was very fine yet simple, setting offto the utmost advantage the distinguished beauty of hisfeatures, in which there was a mingling of national pride,voluptuous sweetness in that unconscious state of reverie whenit affects us as it does in the flower, and intelligence in itsnewly awakened purity. As he turned his head, his profile waslike one I used to have of Love asleep, while Psyche leans overhim with the lamp; but his front face, with the full, summerylook of the eye, was unlike that. He was a Bengalese, living inEngland for his education, as several others are at present. Hespoke English well, and conversed on several subjects, literaryand political, with grace, fluency, and delicacy of thought.Passing from Kendal to Ambleside, we found a charming abodefurnished us by the care of a friend in one of the stone cottagesof this region, almost the only one not ivy-wreathed, butcommanding a beautiful view of the mountains, and truly anEnglish home in its neatness, quiet, and delicate, noiselessattention to the wants of all within its walls. Here we havepassed eight happy days, varied by many drives, boatingexcursions on Grasmere and Winandermere, and the society ofseveral agreeable persons. As the Lake district at this seasondraws together all kinds of people, and a great variety besidecome from, all quarters to inhabit the charming dwellings thatadorn its hill-sides and shores, I met and saw a good deal ofthe representatives of various classes, at once. I found heretwo landed proprietors from other parts of England, both“travelled English,” one owning a property in Greece, where hefrequently resides, both warmly engaged in Reform measures,anti-Corn-Law, anti-Capital-Punishment, — one of them an earneststudent of Emerson’s Essays. Both of them had wives, who keptpace with their projects and their thoughts, active andintelligent women, true ladies, skilful in drawing and music;all the better wives for the development of every power. One ofthem told me, with a glow of pride, that it was not long sinceher husband had been “cut” by all his neighbors among the gentryfor the part he took against the Corn Laws; but, she added, hewas now a favorite with them all. Verily, faith will removemountains, if only you do join with it any fair portion of thedove and serpent attributes.

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I found here, too, a wealthy manufacturer, who had written manyvaluable pamphlets on popular subjects. He said: “Now that theprogress of public opinion was beginning to make the Church andthe Army narrower fields for the younger sons of ‘noble’families, they sometimes wish to enter into trade; but, besidethe aversion which had been instilled into them for manycenturies, they had rarely patience and energy for theapprenticeship requisite to give the needed knowledge of theworld and habits of labor.” Of Cobden he said: “He is inferiorin acquirements to very many of his class, as he is self-educatedand had everything to learn after he was grown up; but in clearinsight there is none like him.” A man of very little education,whom I met a day or two after in the stage-coach, observed tome: “Bright is far the more eloquent of the two, but Cobden ismore felt, just because his speeches are so plain, so merelymatter-of-fact and to the point.”We became acquainted also with Dr. Gregory, Professor ofChemistry at Edinburgh, a very enlightened and benevolent man,who in many ways both instructed and benefited us. He is thefriend of Liebig, and one of his chief representatives here.We also met a fine specimen of the noble, intelligentScotchwoman, such as Walter Scott and Burns knew how to prize.Seventy-six years have passed over her head, only to prove inher the truth of my theory, that we need never grow old. She was“brought up” in the animated and intellectual circle ofEdinburgh, in youth an apt disciple, in her prime a brightornament of that society. She had been an only child, a cherishedwife, an adored mother, unspoiled by love in any of theserelations, because that love was founded on knowledge. Inchildhood she had warmly sympathized in the spirit that animatedthe American Revolution, and Washington had been her hero;later, the interest of her husband in every struggle for freedomhad cherished her own; she had known in the course of her longlife many eminent men, knew minutely the history of efforts inthat direction, and sympathized now in the triumph of the peopleover the Corn Laws, as she had in the American victories, withas much ardor as when a girl, though with a wiser mind. Her eyewas full of light, her manner and gesture of dignity; her voicerich, sonorous, and finely modulated; her tide of talk markedby candor, justice, and showing in every sentence her ripeexperience and her noble, genial nature. Dear to memory will bethe sight of her in the beautiful seclusion of her home amongthe mountains, a picturesque, flower-wreathed dwelling, whereaffection, tranquillity, and wisdom were the gods of the hearth,to whom was offered no vain oblation. Grant us more such women,Time! Grant to men the power to reverence, to seek for such!Our visit to Mr. Wordsworth was very pleasant. He also isseventy-six, but his is a florid, fair old age. He walked withus to all his haunts about the house. Its situation is beautiful,and the “Rydalian Laurels” are magnificent. Still I saw abodesamong the hills that I should have preferred for Wordsworth,more wild and still, more romantic; the fresh and lovely Rydal

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Mount seems merely the retirement of a gentleman, rather thanthe haunt of a poet. He showed his benignity of disposition inseveral little things, especially in his attentions to a youngboy we had with us. This boy had left the Circus, exhibiting itsfeats of horsemanship in Ambleside “for that day only,” at hisown desire to see Wordsworth, and I feared he would bedisappointed, as I know I should have been at his age, if, whencalled to see a poet, I had found no Apollo, flaming withyouthful glory, laurel-crowned and lyre in hand, but, instead,a reverend old man clothed in black, and walking with cautiousstep along the level garden-path; however, he was notdisappointed, but seemed in timid reverence to recognize thespirit that had dictated “Laodamia” and “Dion,” — andWordsworth, in his turn, seemed to feel and prize a congenialnature in this child.Taking us into the house, he showed us the picture of his sister,repeating with much expression some lines of hers, and those sofamous of his about her, beginning, “Five years,” &c.; also hisown picture, by Inman, of whom he spoke with esteem.Mr. Wordsworth is fond of the hollyhock, a partiality scarcelydeserved by the flower, but which marks the simplicity of histastes. He had made a long avenue of them of all colors, fromthe crimson-brown to rose, straw-color, and white, and pleasedhimself with having made proselytes to a liking for them amonghis neighbors.I never have seen such magnificent fuchsias as at Ambleside, andthere was one to be seen in every cottage-yard. They are nolonger here under the shelter of the green-house, as with us,and as they used to be in England. The plant, from its grace andfinished elegance, being a great favorite of mine, I should liketo see it as frequently and of as luxuriant a growth at home,and asked their mode of culture, which I here mark down, for thebenefit of all who may be interested. Make a bed of bog-earthand sand, put down slips of the fuchsia, and give them a greatdeal of water, — this is all they need. People have them outhere in winter, but perhaps they would not bear the cold of ourJanuaries.Mr. Wordsworth spoke with, more liberality than we expected ofthe recent measures about the Corn Laws, saying that “theprinciple was certainly right, though as to whether existinginterests had been as carefully attended to as was just, he wasnot prepared to say.” His neighbors were pleased to hear of hisspeaking thus mildly, and hailed it as a sign that he was openinghis mind to more light on these subjects. They lament that hishabits of seclusion keep him much ignorant of the real wants ofEngland and the world. Living in this region, which iscultivated by small proprietors, where there is little poverty,vice, or misery, he hears not the voice which cries so loudlyfrom other parts of England, and will not be stilled by sweetpoetic suasion or philosophy, for it is the cry of men in thejaws of destruction.It was pleasant to find the reverence inspired by this great and

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pure mind warmest nearest home. Our landlady, in heaping praisesupon him, added, constantly, “And Mrs. Wordsworth, too.” “Do thepeople here,” said I, “value Mr. Wordsworth most because he isa celebrated writer?” “Truly, madam,” said she, “I think it isbecause he is so kind a neighbor.”“True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.”Dr. Arnold, too, — who lived, as his family still live, here, —diffused the same ennobling and animating spirit among those whoknew him in private, as through the sphere of his public labors.Miss Martineau has here a charming residence; it has beenfinished only a few months, but all about it is in unexpectedlyfair order, and promises much beauty after a year or two ofgrowth. Here we found her restored to full health and activity,looking, indeed, far better than she did when in the UnitedStates. It was pleasant to see her in this home, presented toher by the gratitude of England for her course of energetic andbenevolent effort, and adorned by tributes of affection andesteem from many quarters. From the testimony of those who werewith her in and since her illness, her recovery would seem tobe of as magical quickness and sure progress as has beenrepresented. At the house of Miss Martineau I saw Milman, theauthor, I must not say poet, — a specimen of the polished,scholarly man of the world.We passed one most delightful day in a visit to Langdale, — thescene of “The Excursion,” — and to Dungeon-Ghyll Force. I amfinishing my letter at Carlisle on my way to Scotland, and willgive a slight sketch of that excursion, and one which occupiedanother day, from Keswick to Buttermere and Crummock Water, inmy next.

ARTHUR FULLER’S BOOK

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Nicholas Marcellus Hentz relocated from Tuskegee, Alabama to Columbus, Georgia.

Gregor Mendel, in his 4th year of studies at the Theological College, attended additional lectures on agriculture at the Brünn Philosophical Institute. The teacher was Professor Franz Diebl (1770-1859). In June, Mendel received a certificate of completion from the College, and in early August he became a parish priest in the collegiate church at Altbrünn.

The Boston Society of Natural History, which had been organized in 1830 out of what remained of the Linnaean Society that had flourished from 1813 to 1823, moved into its new quarters on Mason Street in the building known as the Massachusetts Medical College.

Dr. Henry Jacob Bigelow got married with Susan Sturgis (1825-1853), a daughter of William Sturgis and Elizabeth Davis Sturgis of Boston.

Up to this point Professor Jacob Bigelow’s FLORULA BOSTONIENSIS, A COLLECTION OF PLANTS OF BOSTON AND ITS VICINITY had been the standard flora for the New England region. With the publication of Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard College Asa Gray, M.D.’s A MANUAL OF THE BOTANY OF THE

1848

PROCEEDINGS, FOR 1848

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NORTHERN UNITED STATES, FROM NEW ENGLAND TO WISCONSIN AND SOUTH TO OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA INCLUSIVE, (THE MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS BY WM. S. SULLIVANT,) ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE NATURAL SYSTEM; WITH AN INTRODUCTION, CONTAINING A REDUCTION OF THE GENERA TO THE LINNÆAN ARTIFICIAL CLASSES AND ORDERS, OUTLINES OF THE ELEMENTS OF BOTANY, A GLOSSARY, ETC. (Boston & Cambridge:

James Munroe and Company, London: John Chapman),1 Professor Bigelow’s contribution had been made

1. This volume would be owned by Henry Thoreau and by Ellery Channing, and Channing’s copy, with his typical scrawling all over it, is now at the Concord Free Public Library.

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obsolete.

In this year Professor Gray also put out the 1st volume of his GENERA OF THE PLANTS OF THE UNITED STATES (you can now purchase a polyester necktie, guaranteed not to eat you alive, printed with Isaac Sprague’s illustration of the Venus Flytrap Dionæa muscipula from this volume).

MANUAL OF THE BOTANY

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In 1848 Professor Asa Gray had issued an edition that would be owned by Henry Thoreau, A MANUAL OF THE BOTANY OF THE NORTHERN UNITED STATES, FROM NEW ENGLAND TO WISCONSIN AND SOUTH TO OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA INCLUSIVE (THE MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS BY WM. S. SULLIVANT), ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE NATURAL SYSTEM (Boston: J. Munroe and company), and in this year he issued a 2d edition (NY: G.P. Putnam & co) that would also be owned by Thoreau (in addition to Professor Gray’s BOTANICAL TEXTBOOK).

(The best study of Thoreau’s multiple references to Gray’s botanies is to be found at the back of THE MAINE WOODS.)

This new edition contained illustrations by Isaac Sprague.

In this year the Calanthe dominii flowered, the world’s 1st planned orchid hybrid (raised by John Dominy for Veitch & Sons).

1856

MANUAL OF THE BOTANY

MANUAL OF THE BOTANY

PLANTS

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July 16, Saturday: Isaac Sprague was born to Isaac Sprague and Sarah Eaton Sprague in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Harper’s Weekly published an illustration of the 4th-of-July fireworks over New-York that provides us with a silhouette of the city’s skyline as viewed through a forest of masts in the harbor:

July 16 and 18: Afternoons, I sounded the Assabet as far up as the stone bridge.This bridge, as I see by the town records, was talked about (i. e. the building) in 1807, and was probably builtthat year or the next (though E. Wood says that the Turnpike Company, who then proposed to build it, did notfulfill their contract). Shattuck’s date, 1802, is wrong. Accordingly, by building this narrow bridge here, twenty-five feet in width, or contracting the stream to about one fourth its average width, the current has been soincreased as to wash away about a quarter of an acre of land which rises a dozen or fourteen feet above water(or at least an acre four feet in depth) and dig a hole six times the average depth of the stream, twenty-two anda half feet deep, or considerable, i. e. three feet, deeper than any place in the main stream from SudburyCauseway to Atkins’s boat-house bend, and all this in fifty years. [Vide July 20th.] Yet the depth under thebridge is only two and a half feet plus. It falls in four rods from two and a half to twenty-two and a half.A considerable island has been formed there, at least three feet and a half above low water, composed of sand,and, two or three rods lower, are deposited the stones, generally larger than a hen’s egg, without sand, formingbars and islands quite distinct from the former. This is much the swiftest place on the stream thus far and deeperthan any for twenty-five miles of [THE] other stream, and consequently there is a great eddy, where I see cakesof ice go round and round in the spring, and, as usual, the shoal water and islands formed by the ruins of thebank and of the bottom are close by. As usual, the shoal water is produced by the rapidity of the current close by.The sand and gravel are deposited chiefly in the immediate neighborhood of the swiftest water, the swift waterproducing an eddy. Hence, apparently, the sandy islands at the junction of the rivers, the sand-bar at the swiftplace on the Assabet, etc. Contract the stream and make it swift, and you will wear a deep hole and make sand-bars and islands below.The stream is remarkably different from the other. It is not half so deep. It is considerably more rapid. Thebottom is not muddy but sandy and occasionally stony. Though far shallower, it is less weedy than the other. Inthe above distance weeds do not anywhere grow quite across it. A shallowness of two and a half feet does notnecessarily bring in weeds, and for long distances three feet is clear of weeds. This is owing, perhaps, not onlyto the greater swiftness of the current, but to the w ant of mud under the sand. The banks and bars are peculiar.They are commonly composed of a fine sand mixed with sawdust, shavings, etc., in which the black willowloves to grow. I know of no such banks on the main stream.Again there are comparatively few of the large floating potamogetons here. (I do not remember any of the verylargest species.) The weeds are chiefly bur-reeds and a slenderer potamogeton and an immersed species (I speak

1859

LEMUEL SHATTUCK

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of weeds in the middle). You wonder what makes the difference between this stream and the other. It seemsimpossible that it should be a geological difference in the beds of the streams so near together. Is it not owingsimply to the greater swiftness of this stream? Does not this produce a sandy and gravelly and stony bottom,and so invite a different fauna and flora? I suspect that a fall of two or three inches more in a mile will producea different fauna and flora to some extent,–the fresh-water sponge, the wood tortoise, the sucker, the kingfisher,the stone-heaps.It is remarkable how the stones are separated from the sand at the Eddy Bridge and deposited in a bar or islandsby themselves a few rods lower down. The sandbar there, partly under water, looks exactly like a snowdrift. Itis a narrow, sharp ridge, extending southwest from the island, with deep water on each side. The sand carriedround by the eddy falls there where the ice is observed to loiter most. The large stones are perhaps swept awayby a stronger current beneath.The bars and banks of this stream are peculiar, i. e. of fine sand without mud. This indicates a fall and swifterwater, and consequently it is on such a stream the mills are built and sawdust and shavings are mixed with suchsand to form the bank. One such bank at the swift place has been recently raised four or five feet above thepresent level by freshets. It is apparently advancing down-stream.

What is deposited by the eddy occasioned by the narrows is building it up, and so the stream is being narrowed

further down. Eddies are the great builders of sand-bars and islands and banks. Any agent that stops the progressof the water downward builds up the bottom in some place.At the bottom of the deep hole at Eddy Bridge, I felt several water-logged trunks of trees and saw some, whichprobably were carried round and round by the eddy until they became water-logged and sank.

READ SHATTUCK TEXT

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December 13, Saturday: Marvin Sprague was born to Isaac Sprague and Sarah Eaton Sprague.

The battle of Fredericksburg generated 17,962 military casualties. The abandoned Conway plantation home became a field hospital where Walt Whitman would search fruitlessly for his wounded brother down the rows of corpses and in the rooms full of mingled Union and Confederate wounded:

The grand Conway brick home in Falmouth yet stands (although its present condition is merely a reminder):

As Whitman would report in the Camden Post for April 16, 1891:

1862

“Memoranda”

In December of this year went down to the field of war in Virginia. My brotherGeorge reported badly wounded in the Fredericksburg fight. (For 1863 and ’64, seeSpecimen Days.)

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A 2d edition was prepared of George B. Emerson’s REPORT ON THE TREES AND SHRUBS GROWING NATURALLY IN THE FORESTS OF MASSACHUSETTS, which had originally been published with illustrations by Isaac Sprague in Boston in 1846.

1875

EMERSON/SPRAGUE

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Isaac Sprague, who had since about 1855 been residing in Grantville, Massachusetts, died.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

1895

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Isaac Sprague

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>.

Prepared: December 9, 2014

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed 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 thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.