《瓦尔登湖·第十六章·冬天的湖·The Pond in Winter》第9节
As for the inlet or outlet of Walden, I have not discovered any but rain and snow and evaporation, though perhaps, with a thermometer and a line, such places may be found, for where the water flows into the pond it will probably be coldest in summer and warmest in winter. When the ice-men were at work here in ’46–7, the cakes sent to the shore were one day rejected by those who were stacking them up there, not being thick enough to lie side by side with the rest; and the cutters thus discovered that the ice over a small space was two or three inches thinner than elsewhere, which made them think that there was an inlet there. They also showed me in another place what they thought was a “leach hole,” through which the pond leaked out under a hill into a neighboring meadow, pushing me out on a cake of ice to see it. It was a small cavity under ten feet of water; but I think that I can warrant the pond not to need soldering till they find a worse leak than that. One has suggested, that if such a “leach hole” should be found, its connection with the meadow, if any existed, might be proved by conveying some colored powder or sawdust to the mouth of the hole, and then putting a strainer over the spring in the meadow, which would catch some of the particles carried through by the current.
注释摘要
这一段在整章里承担着一个很具体的任务：在测量湖底深度之后，梭罗转向湖水的流入与流出，试图以同样的经验观察来处理一个看似简单却又不容易彻底回答的问题。他在这里不像前文那样铺展形而上的推理，而是老老实实讲观察、讲采冰工人的发现、讲别人提出的验证方案，顺带还嘲讽了一下自己短暂被拉去看所谓漏水口的经历。 梭罗先说，他并没有发现瓦尔登湖除了雨、雪和蒸发之外的任何明显…