When I had mapped the pond by the scale of ten rods to an inch,and put down the soundings,more than a hundred in all,I observed this remarkable coincidence.Having noticed that the number indicating the greatest depth was apparently in the centre of the map,I laid a rule on the map lengthwise,and then breadthwise,and found,to my surprise,that the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the point of greatest depth,notwithstanding that the middle is so nearly level,the outline of the pond far from regular,and the extreme length and breadth were got by measuring into the coves;and I said to myself,Who knows but this hint would conduct to the deepest part of the ocean as well as of a pond or puddle?Is not this the rule also for the height of mountains,regarded as the opposite of valleys?We know that a hill is not highest at its narrowest part.
Of five coves,three,or all which had been sounded,were observed to have a bar quite across their mouths and deeper water within,so that the bay tended to be an expansion of water within the land not only horizontally but vertically,and to form a basin or independent pond,the direction of the two capes showing the course of the bar.Every harbor on the seacoast,also,has its bar at its entrance.In proportion as the mouth of the cove was wider compared with its length,the water over the bar was deeper compared with that in the basin.Given,then,the length and breadth of the cove,and the character of the surrounding shore,and you have almost elements enough to make out a formula for all cases.
In order to see how nearly I could guess,with this experience,at the deepest point in a pond,by observing the outlines of its surface and the character of its shores alone,I made a plan of White Pond,which contains about forty-one acres,and,like this,has no island in it,nor any visible inlet or outlet;and as the line of greatest breadth fell very near the line of least breadth,where two opposite capes approached each other and two opposite bays receded,I ventured to mark a point a short distance from the latter line,but still on the line of greatest length,as the deepest.The deepest part was found to be within one hundred feet of this,still farther in the direction to which I had inclined,and was only one foot deeper,namely,sixty feet.Of course,a stream running through,or an island in the pond,would make the problem much more complicated.
If we knew all the laws of Nature,we should need only one fact,or the deion of one actual phenomenon,to infer all the particular results at that point.Now we know only a few laws,and our result is vitiated,not,of course,by any confusion or irregularity in Nature,but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation.Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect;but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting,but really concurring,laws,which we have not detected,is still more wonderful.The particular laws are as our points of view,as,to the traveller,a mountain outline varies with every step,and it has an infinite number of profiles,though absolutely but one form.Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness.
What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics.It is the law of average.Such a rule of the two diameters not only guides us toward the sun in the system and the heart in man,but draw lines through the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man's particular daily behaviors and waves of life into his coves and inlets,and where they intersect will be the height or depth of his character.Perhaps we need only to know how his shores trend and his adjacent country or circumstances,to infer his depth and concealed bottom.If he is surrounded by mountainous circumstances,an Achillean shore,whose peaks overshadow and are reflected in his bosom,they suggest a corresponding depth in him.But a low and smooth shore proves him shallow on that side.In our bodies,a bold projecting brow falls off to and indicates a corresponding depth of thought.Also there is a bar across the entrance of our every cove,or particular inclination;each is our harbor for a season,in which we are detained and partially land-locked.These inclinations are not whimsical usually,but their form,size,and direction are determined by the promontories of the shore,the ancient axes of elevation.When this bar is gradually increased by storms,tides,or currents,or there is a subsidence of the waters,so that it reaches to the surface,that which was at first but an inclination in the shore in which a thought was harbored becomes an individual lake,cut off from the ocean,wherein the thought secures its own conditions,-changes,perhaps,from salt to fresh,becomes a sweet sea,dead sea,or a marsh.At the advent of each individual into this life,may we not suppose that such a bar has risen to the surface somewhere?It is true,we are such poor navigators that our thoughts,for the most part,stand off and on upon a harborless coast,are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy,or steer for the public ports of entry,and go into the dry docks of science,where they merely refit for this world,and no natural currents concur to individualize them.
