Vlll PREFACE 



that nothing drawing over 6 feet can enter. As a port it is 

 now deserted and impossible. In Morecambe Bay large 

 areas have at various times been reclaimed from the 

 waters; but the waters have frequently reasserted them- 

 selves: thus in 1828 the Levens washed away the West 

 Plain estate, a farm of great extent, which had been 

 reclaimed in 1807-8, and was at the time of its destruction 

 let for £750 per annum. The East Plain estate, reclaimed 

 at the same time, escaped destruction. Several reclamations, 

 made when the railway was formed, have so far survived. 

 What effect these changes have had upon the sea-fowls, in 

 numbers or kind, must be left to Mr. Macpherson to deal 

 with: — in all probability but little compared with more 

 extensive changes wrought by the enclosure and drainage 

 acts of the end of the last century. This great quantity of 

 sea-water, said to be warmed by a special branch-off from 

 the Gulf Stream, has a most material effect upon the climate 

 of the coast it laves. The temperature is mild, frost un- 

 frequent, snow rarely lies, while fuchsias and other delicate 

 plants nourish in the open all the year round. Fish abound 

 in these waters, and their pursuit in the open sea has bred 

 up a race of hardy sailors, while their capture in the 

 estuaries and rivers has been the subject of much legislation, 

 of many charters, and of frequent litigation, among whose 

 dreary and jejune records the legal antiquary finds much 

 pabulum, and the naturalist not a little. 



If the western boundary of Lakeland is mainly water, its 

 eastern one is moor and mountain, defined, now by some 

 mountain stream, now by a watershed, here and again by 

 currocks, or little piles of stones, while a big boulder, like 

 Tom Smith's Stone, marks a salient or a re-entering angle. 

 The fells it traverses are part of the great range that runs 

 from Tweed to Derbyshire, losing itself in the Midlands. 

 This boundary finds its most easterly point at Pay Cross, 



