Chapter XVI: The Pond in Winter Practice Quiz — Walden
by Henry David Thoreau — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter XVI: The Pond in Winter
What does Thoreau do each winter morning to get water?
He takes an axe and pail, cuts through a foot of snow and a foot of ice, and opens a window in the frozen pond to kneel and drink.
What is the greatest depth Thoreau measures at Walden Pond?
Exactly 102 feet, or 107 feet when accounting for the five-foot rise in water level since his survey.
What geometric discovery does Thoreau make when mapping the pond?
The line of greatest length intersects the line of greatest breadth exactly at the point of greatest depth.
How does Thoreau test his geometric rule on another body of water?
He makes a plan of White Pond and predicts its deepest point using the same rule. He is accurate to within 100 feet and one foot of depth.
Who comes to cut ice from Walden in the winter of 1846-47?
A hundred Irish laborers with Yankee overseers, working for a wealthy gentleman farmer who wanted to double his half-million-dollar fortune.
How much ice is stacked and what happens to most of it?
About ten thousand tons are stacked 35 feet high, but most never reaches market and melts back into the pond by September 1848.
What tool does Thoreau use to sound the pond bottom?
A cod-line and a stone weighing about a pound and a half.
How does Thoreau characterize the winter fishermen at Walden?
He calls them "wild men" who follow their own authorities, are wise in natural lore, and live deeper in nature than any naturalist can study.
Who is the "gentleman farmer" behind the ice-cutting operation?
An unnamed wealthy man who already had about half a million dollars and wanted to double his money by harvesting and selling Walden ice.
How does Thoreau describe the ice-cutters as workers?
He calls them "a merry race, full of jest and sport" who invited him to saw pit-fashion with them.
Who is the "servant of the Bramin" Thoreau imagines meeting?
An imagined servant of a Brahmin priest who sits on the Ganges reading the Vedas, whose bucket meets Thoreau's at the same well through the exported ice.
Who is William Gilpin and why does Thoreau mention him?
A landscape writer whom Thoreau cites for his description of Loch Fyne, using the comparison to show that even deep-seeming bodies of water are shallow relative to their area.
How does Thoreau connect the physical depth of the pond to human character?
He argues that just as a pond's deepest point can be found where its longest and broadest lines intersect, a person's depth of character can be mapped by examining the key dimensions of their life and behavior.
What does the chapter suggest about the relationship between commerce and nature?
The ice-cutting operation represents commercial exploitation of nature, but the pond ultimately "recovered the greater part" of what was taken, suggesting nature outlasts commerce.
How does the chapter express global interconnection?
Thoreau imagines Walden ice reaching Charleston, New Orleans, Bombay, and Calcutta, and envisions his water mingling with the Ganges, connecting his local life to the wider world.
What is the significance of Thoreau debunking the myth of the pond's bottomlessness?
It represents his commitment to empirical truth over superstition, while he also affirms the pond's symbolic depth: "I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure for a symbol."
What extended metaphor does Thoreau develop from his pond survey?
He extends the geometric rule of the pond (depth at the intersection of length and breadth) into a metaphor for mapping human character, where the intersection of life's dimensions reveals one's moral depth.
How does Thoreau personify Walden Pond in this chapter?
He says the pond "closes its eyelids and becomes dormant," calls it "Squaw Walden" who takes revenge on careless workers, and describes the ice-cutters as stripping its "only coat" and "skin."
What is ironic about the ice-cutting enterprise?
The wealthy farmer strips Walden's "only coat" in winter to profit, but most of the ten thousand tons of ice never reaches market and melts back into the pond.
What literary allusions appear in the chapter's closing passage?
Thoreau alludes to the Bhagavad Gita, Brahma, Vishnu, Indra, the Vedas, Atlantis, the Hesperides, the periplus of Hanno, and Alexander the Great.
What does "cynosure" mean as used in the chapter?
A center of attention or admiration. Thoreau says the pickerel "would be the cynosure of all eyes" if seen in a market.
What does "fathom" mean in the context of measuring the pond?
To measure the depth of water, typically using a weighted line. Thoreau says he "fathomed it easily with a cod-line and a stone."
What does "estivate" mean in the chapter?
To spend the summer in a dormant or inactive state (opposite of hibernate). Thoreau says the ice pile looked as if Winter "had a design to estivate with us."
Who says "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads" and what does it mean?
Thoreau writes this after peering through the ice into the pond. It means the divine exists in the natural world beneath us, not only in some celestial realm above.
What does Thoreau mean by "I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure for a symbol"?
He expresses gratitude that Walden's literal depth serves as a symbol for the possibility of spiritual and intellectual depth, countering the shallowness of conventional life.
What is the significance of "our buckets as it were grate together in the same well"?
Thoreau imagines meeting the servant of a Brahmin priest at Walden, their buckets touching in the same well—symbolizing the unity of Eastern and Western thought and the interconnection of all humanity through nature.