subject may be concluded with observing--that, from the
multitude of brooks and torrents that fall into these lakes, and of
internal springs by which they are fed, and which circulate through them
like veins, they are truly living lakes, _'vivi lacus;'_ and are thus
discriminated from the stagnant and sullen pools frequent among
mountains that have been formed by volcanoes, and from the shallow meres
found in flat and fenny countries. The water is also of crystalline
purity; so that, if it were not for the reflections of the incumbent
mountains by which it is darkened, a delusion might be felt, by a person
resting quietly in a boat on the bosom of Winandermere or Derwent-water,
similar to that which Carver so beautifully describes when he was
floating alone in the middle of lake Erie or Ontario, and could almost
have imagined that his boat was suspended in an element as pure as air,
or rather that the air and water were one.

Having spoken of Lakes I must not omit to mention, as a kindred feature
of this country, those bodies of still water called TARNS. In the
economy of Nature these are useful, as auxiliars to Lakes; for if the
whole quantity of water which falls upon the mountains in time of storm
were poured down upon the plains without intervention, in some quarters,
of such receptacles, the habitable grounds would be much more subject
than they are to inundation. But, as some of the collateral brooks spend
their fury, finding a free course toward and also down the channel of
the main stream of the vale before those that have to pass through the
higher tarns and lakes have filled their several basins, a gradual
distribution is effected; and the waters thus reserved, instead of
uniting, to spread ravage and deformity, with those which meet with no
such detention, contribute to support, for a length of time, the vigour
of many streams without a fresh fall of rain. Tarns are found in some of
the vales, and are numerous upon the mountains. A Tarn, in a _Vale_,
implies, for the most part, that the bed of the vale is not happily
formed; that the water of the brooks can neither wholly escape, nor
diffuse itself over a large area. Accordingly, in such situations, Tarns
are often surrounded by an unsightly tract of boggy ground; but this is
not always the case, and in the cultivated parts of the country, when
the shores of the Tarn are determined, it differs only from the Lake in
being smaller, and in belonging mostly to a