18 GLAUCUS ; Oil, 



forces at work to form such a cliasm. Probably 

 the mountain was actually opened from within by 

 an earthquake, and when the strata fell together 

 again, the portion at either end of the chasm, 

 being perhaps crushed together with greater 

 force, remained higher than the centre, and so 

 the water lodged between them. Perhaps it 

 was formed thus. You will at least agree that 

 its formation must have been a grand sight 

 enough, and one during which a spectator would 

 have had some difficulty in keeping his footing. 



And when you learn that this convulsion prob- 

 ably took place at the bottom of an ocean, hun- 

 dreds of thousands of years ago, you have at 

 least a few thoughts over which to ruminate, 

 which Avill make you at once too busy to grum- 

 ble, and ashamed to grumble. 



Yet after all, I hardly think the lake was 

 formed in this way, and suspect that it may have 

 been dry land for ages after it emerged from the 

 primeval waves, and Snowdonia was a palm- 

 fringed island in a tropic sea. Let us look the 

 place over more carefully. 



You see the lake is nearly circular ; on the 

 side where we stand, the pebbly beach is not six 

 feet above the water, and slopes away steeply 



