THE WONDEES OF THE SHORE. 21 



spectator would have had some difficulty in keeping 

 his footing. 



And when you learn that this convulsion probably 

 took place at the bottom of an ocean, hundreds of 

 thousands of years ago, you have at least a few 

 thoughts over which to ruminate, which will make 

 you at once too busy to grumble, 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 

 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 into the 

 valley behind us, while before us it shelves gra- 

 dually into the lake ; forty yards out, as you know, 

 there is not ten feet water ; and then a steep bank, 

 the edge whereof we and the big trout know well, 

 sinks suddenly to unknown depths. On the op- 

 posite side, that vast flat-topped wall of rock towers 



