190 



NATURE FOB ITS OWN SAKE 



artificial growths. A sheet of clear water in a 

 framing of green hills, dotted by many lovely 

 islands and colored by as bright a sky as ever 

 arched the earth, it seems to epitomize all lake 

 loveliness, and to exemplify the luxuriant splen- 

 dor of untrammelled nature. The breath of the 

 wilderness is still there, though man has begun 

 to tenant its shores in places. The wind that 

 blows over it is pure, and those timbered 

 heights above it are, as yet, comparatively un- 

 trodden. Its beauties seem as bright as when 

 the earth and the firmament and the sea were 

 first created ; and to-day, as for many centuries, 

 a light seems to come out of the west at sun- 

 set, tingeing the green-garmented shoulders of 

 Black Mountain with a golden hue unknown 

 to the Alps and the Pyrenees a hue belong- 

 ing to the primitive world, put on by nature 

 for its own splendor and its own pleasure. 



A pond or a pool is often little more than a 

 diminutive lake, filling a depression and pro- 

 duced by an embankment after the fashion 

 of almost all still waters. It differs from a 

 mountain-lake by usually having low-lying 

 shores without tall timber or rocks, a sandy 

 or muddy bottom, and perhaps, flags, rushes, 

 and rough grasses growing along its shallow 



