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Pawson: The Lake Country. 3 
these hills ever produce glaciers sufficiently powerful to scoop out 
the lake-beds. This is a country which sprang into existence’ 
directly from the hand of the Creator. It rose from the sea 
finished, a mountain-land fashioned in hidden fires. ; 
It is to the i igneous eee of Lakeland that it. owes its 
nge, sO many are its patria slopes, and contours ough- 
rigg Fell, for example, might be placed in a moderate-sized 
_ park, and yet it is as diversified as the Bernese Oberland or 
the massif of Mont Blanc. Again in what fine contrast to’ 
the volcanic hills rise to the north those smoother heights which 
have been hewn in softer stone. How nobly beyond the twisted 
and molten crags of Bow Fell and Glaramara sweep the graceful 
curves of Skiddaw and his attendant mountains, whose rocks, 
though pressed and altered, have not been passed through the 
crucible ! 
Whence comes the extraordinary abundance of water which 
this district produces, and to which it owes half its attractive- | 
ness? Where else on six hundred square miles of land can be 
found such a plenitude of lakes and pools, brooks, cascades, and 
running streams? Everywhere is the splashing, gurgling, and 
gushing of water restlessly hastening to the sea, yet it tarries 
long enough on the way to cover the country with winding lakes 
like broadened rivers, out of one of which Manchester drinks her fill 
apparently without wasting it more than Elijah did the widow’s 
cruse. The position of this hill-country on the verge of the Jand 
overhanging a broad channel of the Atlantic is the cause of all 
this moisture. The warm air coming rain-laden from the west 
is suddenly chilled on this high ground and must needs let fall 
the water which it can no longer carry. Thus the wee land is 
continually steeped in humidity. 
The extraordinary verdure of the country attracts instant 
attention, even in England, where this quality is everywhere 
noticed’ by strangers. Every wall is clothed with moss, the ferns 
fill every ditch, and, refreshed by the clouds, they flourish even 
on the open mountain sides. 
The impervious nature of the rocks has much to do with the 
beauty of the land. But little rain sinks through these solid 
slates and porphyries; most of it remains on the surface, 
_ coursing down the steep slopes in rills and brooks, pouring in 
_ waterfalls, tossing in cascades, carving ghylls and gorges, and He 
_ Spreading itself in lakes cimpatae 8 the flat meadows of oe. aey 
A 
d ee, eter’, of the hard: rocks is seen in the § Eee 
ae 
