00 WINTER.— NOTES AT TUE LAKES. 



marble passages, as it were ; breasting a sparkling view beyond, of the Hel- 

 vellyn range, or what one of our local poets styles, the 



" Elephantine sides of mighty Helvellyn I " 



All the ridges have been clothed in the purest white, and have not been so 

 beautifully adorned, perhaps, for twenty years. 



In a simihir excavation extending the greater part of a mile along a lane — 

 the Lovers' lane of Keswick cars — to the Druid stones, upon the brow of 

 Castle Rigg, I wandered the other day ; and suddenly, in the snow track, I 

 was aroused by three wild geese, on their way to some other winter scene. 

 Noting the trio is barely admissable ; but their flight was so remarkably low, 

 that, had I had a stone ready and been a good shot, I certainly might have 

 brought down or wounded one of them, as they passed over my head. 



A day or two after the departure of the Wild Geese, a rapid thaw com- 

 menced ; which has continued, and melted the snow fields, and the stubborn 

 thousand acres of lake ice ; leaving here and there only traces of former 

 richest traceiy, which appear in scratches and patches on fell noses and their 

 caps. The ice of Dei'wentwater, on being cut, was ascertained to be about 

 eight inches thick in the centre of the lake, before Thursday, February 22nd ; 

 and the surface was so compact and solid, that carts heavily loaded with 

 coals passed over to Vicar's Island ; also two gentlemen in a gig drove across 

 the lake. I walked round part of Derwentwater the other day, immediately 

 after the thaw began, and was much surprised on seeing extensive cracks, 

 which appeared to reach nearly across the lake. Large wedges of ice had 

 been raised, and reclined upon the level surface, or lake ice field ; the sun's 

 rays, softening the thick floes, caused them to break into thousands of elon- 

 gated crystals, when you administered a sharp blow to the block; thereby 

 scattering the glittering fragments in every direction, as spangles innumer- 

 ble, to the sun 



A few days ago, I paid a visit to Stockgill Force, near Ambleside ; but did 

 not particular!}' note its appearance, expecting to look upon more beautiful 

 tracery from accumulated icicles and their congeners. The encased falling 

 water, broken, was pretty to look at, within the grotto-formed recesses of ice ; 

 but the effect at the old bobbin mill, a few yards below, was beyond descrip- 

 tion. Icicles seemed to weep as willow sprays, in every direction where the 

 cold water could escape to add another frozen drop ; and the trough whose 

 contents supplied the mill wheel stood forth with a regiment of oblong white 

 boys, some eight or ten feet in height. 



At Keswick, vegetation is far behind, as we can only expect. The Snowdi'op 



1 noticed, for the first time, in the gardens of Greta Hall, on March 1st. 

 The Bullfincjh sang lustily on the 1st of March ; but all other birds, save the 

 Robin and Rooks, have not yet yet regained their spring-like feelings. 



Greta Hall, vear KeswicJf, March 2iuh 1855. 



