. The earth and its inhabitants ... g them he successively passes through differentzones or climates. Starting from the smiling country, abounding in orchards,at their foot, he traverses the pine woods which clothe their lower slopes, andfinally emerges upon the fells, which yield nought but ling and bracken. Thetopmost summits are clad with verdure only during summer and autumn, forin winter and spring they are either covered with snow, or their scant vegeta-tion is tinged a russet brown by the frost. As they face the moisture-ladensouth-westerly winds, the amount of precipitation is enormous
. The earth and its inhabitants ... g them he successively passes through differentzones or climates. Starting from the smiling country, abounding in orchards,at their foot, he traverses the pine woods which clothe their lower slopes, andfinally emerges upon the fells, which yield nought but ling and bracken. Thetopmost summits are clad with verdure only during summer and autumn, forin winter and spring they are either covered with snow, or their scant vegeta-tion is tinged a russet brown by the frost. As they face the moisture-ladensouth-westerly winds, the amount of precipitation is enormous, averaging about80 inches a year, and even reaching 16 feet in some localities, where the clouds are 280 THE BRITISH ISLES. entrapped in hollows on the mountain sides, from which they cannot ruins and violent snow-storms are phenomena of ordinary occurrence,and iu the depth of winter it is often impossible to ascend the highest summits. Fil^. 138.—llYI-SOGKAIMUCAL OF TUB CuMBUIAN MOUNTAINS. Scale 1 : 634, Foreshore. Sea-level to600 Feet. 6M to 10 Miles. Over 1,200Feet. The boldest shepherds have refused at times to climb the mountain-tops in orderto consult the rain gauges which have been placed upon them.* • J. Fletcher Miller, Philosophical Transactions, 1851. THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 281 The torrents which run down the impermeable sides of these craggy moun-tains are the feeders of lakes which occupy deep cavities, reaching in severalinstances below the level of the sea. A slight subsidence of the land wouldconvert these lakes into lochs or firths, such as we see at the present day alongthe coast of Scotland, and it is the opinion of geologists that previously to thelast upheaval of the land they actually were firths, and ramified in the samemanner as Morecarabe Bay does to the present day. But it is not their geologicalgenesis which renders these lakes so great an attraction. They are one of theglories of England not only because they a
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