NATURAL CHANGES. 185 



Thus have our travellers, in the space of four 

 days, seen the greater part of the lakes and moun- 

 tains. If they have used their eyes and 



E keswick° minds, they must have observed some- 

 thing 1 of the material, moral, and social 

 changes going on perpetually in this once secluded 

 corner of the United Kingdom. 



As for the material changes, — those wrought in 

 silence by Nature are of the same quiet, gradual 

 kind that have been going on ever since the moun- 

 tains were upreared. She disintegrates the rocks, 

 and now and then sends down masses thundering 

 along the ravines, to bridge over a chasm, or make 

 a new islet in a pool. She sows her seeds in crevices, 

 or on little projections, so that the bare face of the 

 precipice becomes feathered with the rowan and the 

 birch; and thus, ere long, motion is produced by 

 the passing winds, in a scene where all once appeared 

 rigid as a mine. She draws her carpet of verdure 

 gradually up the bare slopes, where she has deposited 

 earth to sustain the vegetation. She is for ever 

 covering with her exquisite mosses and ferns every 

 spot which has been left unsightly, till nothing 

 appears that can offend the human eye, within 

 a whole circle of hills. She even silently rebukes 

 and repairs the false taste of uneducated man. If 

 he makes his dwelling of too glaring a white, she 

 tempers it with weather stains ; if he indolently 

 leaves the stone walls and blue slates unrelieved by 

 any neighbouring vegetation, she supplies the need- 

 ful screen by bringing out tufts of delicate fern in 

 the crevices, and springing coppice on the nearest 

 slopes. The most significant changes, however, are 

 in the disposition of the waters of the region. The 



