48 TARNS AND THEIR CHARACTER. 



more successful ; I wish I could dispense with 

 the perhaps, an odious word, but too applicable 

 to tarn-fishing, in which the chances always are 

 against success, so much so, that I would give 

 it up entirely, were it not for the sake of the 

 mountain air and the mountain scenery. 



AMICUS. I admire these mountain tarns, in 

 their naked beauty. These I infer are good 

 examples of the whole, Easedale of the larger 

 class, Goodie Tarn of the smaller. Nakedness, 

 the almost total absence of trees, verdant 

 slopes, and rugged rocks, seem to be their 

 characteristics. The vast quantity of rain that 

 falls amongst these woodless mountains, with- 

 out which I have heard you say your lakes 

 and tarns would be in danger of becoming 

 horrid chasms, confirm an idea I have long 

 formed, that too much stress has been laid by 

 meteorologists on the presence of wood, as the 

 promoter of rain. Do you suppose these tarns 

 like the Speculum Diance and most of the 

 smaller Italian lakes, to be of volcanic origin, 

 and their basins the craters of extinct volcanoes ? 



PISCATOR. The features you have mentioned, 

 are the common ones of our tarns, and these, 

 you see, are fair specimens of the whole. 



