TREATMENT OF WATER. 283 



out, the improver can, with the occasional aid of the level- 

 ler, easily determine where and how he can make alterations 

 and improvements. He will then excavate along the new 

 margin, until he makes the water line, (as shown by the in- 

 strument,) penetrate to all the various bays, inlets, and curves 

 of the proposed lake. In making these irresfular variations, 

 sometimes bold and striking, at others fainter and less per- 

 ceptible, he can be guided, as we have already suggested, by 

 no fixed rules, but such as he may deduce from the opera- 

 tions of nature on the same materials, or by imbuing his mind 

 with the beauty of forms in graceful and refined art. In 

 highly polished scenery, elegant curves and graceful sweeps 

 should enter into the composition of the outline; but in wilder 

 or more picturesque situations, more irregular and abrupt 

 variations, will be found most suitable and appropriate. 



The intended water outline once fully traced and under- 

 stood, the workmen can now proceed to form the banks. All 

 this time the improver Vv^ill keep in mind the supposed ap- 

 pearance of the bank of a natural lake stripped of its vegeta- 

 tion, etc., which will greatly assist him in his progress. In 

 some places the banks will rise but little from the water, at 

 others one or two feet, and at others perhaps three, four, or 

 six times as much. This they will do, not in the same man- 

 ner in all portions of the outline, sloping away with a like 

 gradual rise on both sides, for this would inevitably produce 

 tameness and monotony, but in an irregular and varied man- 

 ner ; sometimes falling back gradually, sometimes starting 

 up perpendicularly, and again overhanging the bed of the lake 

 itself 



All this can be easily effected, while the excavations of 

 those portions of the bed which require deepening are going 

 on. And the better portions of the soil obtained from the 



