TREATMENT OF WATER. 
323 
water can be displayed in the grounds of a country resi- 
dence.* They invariably produce their most pleasing 
effects when they are below the level of the house ; as, if 
above, they are lost to the view, and if placed on a level 
with the eye they are seen to much less advantage. We 
conceive that they should never be introduced where they 
do not naturally exist, except with the concurrence of the 
following circumstances. First, a sufficient quantity of 
running water to maintain at all times an overflow, for 
nothing can be more unpleasant than a stagnant pool, as 
nothing is more delightful than pure, clear, limpid water ; 
and secondly, some natural formation of ground, in which 
the proposed water can be expanded, that will not only 
make it appear natural, but diminish, a hundred fold, the 
expense of formation. 
The finest and most appropriate place to form a lake, is in 
the bottom of a small valley, rather broad in proportion to 
its length. The soil there, will probably be found rather 
clayey and retentive of moisture, and the rill or brook, if not 
already running through it, could doubtless be easily diver- 
ted thither. There, by damming up the lower part of the 
valley with a head of greater or less height, the water may 
be thrown back so as to form the whole body of the lake. 
The first subject which will demand the attention, after 
the spot has been selected for the lake or pond, and the 
height of the head, and consequent depth of water deter- 
mined upon, is the proposed form or outline of the whole. 
* Owing to the immense scale upon which nature displays this fine element in 
North America, every sheet of water of moderate or small size, is almost univer- 
sally called a pond. And many a beautiful, limpid, natural expanse which in 
England would be thought a charming lake, is here simply a pond. The term 
may be equally correct, but is by no means as elegant. 
