Thoreau writes in his journal:
Walden apparently froze over last night. It is but little more than an inch thick, and two or three square rods by Hubbard’s shore are still open . . . When I lie down on it and examine it closely, I find that the greater part of the bubbles which I had thought were within its own substance are against its under surface, and that they are continually rising up from the bottom,—perfect spheres, apparently, and very beautiful and clear, in which I see my face through this thin ice (perhaps an inch and an eighth), from one eightieth of an inch in diameter, or a mere point, up to one eighth of an inch.
Concord, Mass. William Ellery Channing writes in his journal:
Walden is covered with ice very beautiful with its still reflexes in the ice (William Ellery Channing notebooks and journals. Houghton Library, Harvard University).