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peat-bogs exist, it is important to bring the peat into a state for fuel without admixture with any other substance, and hence much attention has been paid to this matter. In Holland, where the peat cannot be dug out of the solid mass, but is brought up in the form of mud from a considerable depth under water, the following plan is adopted :-After the liquid peat has been raised by means of small strong nets fixed to a long pole, it is brought in boats to a place prepared for the manufacture, which is flat and level. The liquid peat is spread over the ground to a depth of six inches, and the water is allowed to drain off slowly. When the peat begins to dry, men fix boards to their feet and walk over it, so as to compress it; and as soon as it will bear cutting, it is cut with a spade made, on purpose, into oblong pieces, measuring eight or nine inches by five. When completely solid, these peats, which by treading and drying have been reduced to a thickness of four or five inches, are set on edge, and afterwards stacked loosely, so that the air may pass through them, in a shed covered by a roof to protect them from the rain. They soon become hard, and burn more like wood or coal than the peat which is cut immediately from the solid mass. They give out great heat, and form a fuel which, when it is shut up in a close vessel to stop the combustion, and allowed to cool, has a considerable resemblance to charcoal.

a patent; at the same time giving permission to any one, on proper application, to use such a machine gratuitously. In the selection of the peat for compression care is taken that it is a black peat, free from fibre, and presenting somewhat the appearance of blackened butter. The peat is dug in pieces eight inches long. three wide, and three deep; since all attempts to compress the water from larger masses have failed. Before compression, the peats are placed to dry for five or six days under sheds, in the same manner as bricks and tiles; and after compression they remain under cover until perfectly free from moisture, when they are fit for use. The peat, when properly compressed, is reduced about one-third in size, hard and compact, and nearly black in colour. It has been found an excellent substitute for coal, both in domestic fireplaces and in manufactories. It has been used in calcining lime and in steam-engine furnaces. When charred in a close oven, it produces such admirable charcoal, that some cutlers have used it in forging razors and surgical instruments, and have stamped their goods with the inscription, "forged with peat," as a test of quality.

True Breeding.-Lord Chatham, who was almost as remarkable for his manners as for his eloquence and public spirit, has defined good-breeding-" Benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves in the little daily occurrences of life."Sharp's Letters and Essays.

The common mode of collecting and cutting the stiffer peat, turf, or bog of our own isles is thus:The instrument used is the turf-spade, about four feet in length and four inches in breadth, having an edge turned up on one side for the purpose of cutting the has just sunk beneath the waves, and the eye can rest without Cadiz at Sunset.-At that hour, when the dazzling luminary turf into pieces, while being sliced from off the sub-aching upon the bright masses of snow-white structures that stratum. The ground being first marked out on the surface in a straight line, of any convenient length, and three or four feet in width, the surface is brought .evel by means of a common spade; and the turfcutter, taking his station at one end or side, proceeds to slice off the turf, which is separated into oblong strips by means of the edge to the spade. The peats or pieces thus procured are first laid on the ground to get partially dry, and then piled up in open heaps until dry enough for use.

Some of the public journals, three or four years ago, gave some interesting details respecting the means adopted by Lord Willoughby to render peat more available as fuel. During a frequent residence in the mountainous districts of Scotland and Wales, where the inhabitants depend chiefly upon peat for their fuel, his lordship had given much attention to the manner of preparing it for use. From observing the impossibility of rendering it available in a wet season for domestic purposes, he was induced to enter upon a series of experiments for its compression by machinery. The first of these took place in 1834. The machine employed was a powerful screw-press, so adjusted that two men could produce with it a pressure of a hundred tons. A hollow receptacle in the press was charged with about seven cubical feet of wet peat, and the pressure being then applied, all the moisture was expelled from the peat through small holes in the containing vessel. In another machine a different form of receptacle was adopted to prevent the exudation of the peat itself through the small holes which were intended for the exit of the water; and this was further aided by wrapping the peat in linen cloth. As the method was expensive, and rather slow, his lordship made a further trial. He contrived an arrangement in which a piston descended upon the wet peat, beneath which was a layer of linen cloth and another of hair cloth; and the water thus found its way through without allowing any of the peat to pass. Step by step Lord Willoughby proceeded, until he produced a inachine which he deemed useful enough to secure by

spread around,-glowing still, but no longer glaring upon the
sight,-I generally ascended the Mirador of our hotel to enjoy,
from those upper regions, the calm beauty of the hour, and to
contemplate the unclouded glories of the western sky reflected
upon the crisped bosom of the ocean, and steeping bay, creek,
and headland in hues that would defy the powers of a Claude
to transfer to canvas. From these little watch-towers one looks
down upon a vast expanse of flat-terraced roofs, white as
the walls they surmount, and, in many instances, gay with
flowers, which gradually become animated by the presence of
some of the dwellers within; Senoritas are there to be seen tend-
ing the blooming shrubs that impart to their terrace the appear-
auce of a gay parterre; children at high romps; gentlemen
smoking cigars; ladies fanning themselves, and stepping daintily
backwards and forwards, conscious that, even there, admiring
eyes are fixed upon them; while from the streets below ascends
the hum of the busy throngs who at that hour are all directing
their steps towards the Alameda and the Plaza de la Constitu-
cion. But that which has the most amused me in the moving
tableau which the roofs of Cadiz exhibit at sunset is a sports-
man, accoutred in a shooting jacket and gaiters, with powder-
flask, game-bag, and gun en régie, and attended by a fine pointer,
of his terrace, with all the ceremonies that would attend a simi-
who actually takes the diversion of shooting over the preserves
lar pursuit in a turnip-field er stubble-ground in Norfolk. The
dog regularly beats about the ground and points, and puts up a
sparrow or a swallow, and his master as regularly takes aim and
fires; and although literally il tire sa poudre aux moineaux,
and that, even should he hit his bird, it inevitably falls into the
street, or upon some neighbouring roof, he appears to be as much
delighted as though he brought down the finest pheasant that
ever whizzed out of a brake-whistles his dog to him, makes
That this ardent sportsman
much of him, and recommences.
should like to shoot at sparrows upon the housetop is quite in-
telligible; but the accompaniment of the pointer is one of those
seamanship of some of our Thames-yachting amateurs, who,
solemn absurdities that defy calculation. It reminds me of the
although they have never screwed up their courage to the stick-
ing point of venturing into blue water, never go on a white-bait
excursion to Greenwich or Blackwall without ordering close-
reefed top-sails and a storm-jib to be got ready, in order to meet
the contingent perils of their cruise.-—Mrs. Romer's Summer
Ramble in 1842.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

ESSAYS ON THE LIVES OF REMARKABLE | every creation of his pencil an act of piety and charity,

PAINTERS.-No. XIII.

[Continued from page 274.]

ANGELICO DA FIESOLE. CONTEMPORARY With Fra Filippo, or rather earlier in point of date, lived another painter-monk, presenting in his life and character the strongest possible contrast to the former-a man who, as Vasari tells us, might have lived a very agreeable life in the world, had he not, impelled by a sincere and fervent spirit of devotion, retired from it at the age of twenty to bury himself within the walls of a cloister; a man, with whom the practice of a beautiful art was thenceforth a hymn of praise, and

No. 726.

and who, in seeking only the glory of God, earned an immortal glory among men. This was Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole, whose name, before he entered the convent, was Guido Petri de Mugello.* He has since obtained, from the holiness of his life, the title of Il Beato, "the Blessed," by which he is often mentioned in Italian histories of art. He was born in 1387, at Fiesole, a beautiful town situated on a hill overlooking Florence; and in 1407, being then twenty, and already skilled in the art of painting, particularly miniature illuminations, he entered the Dominican convent of St. Mark at Florence, and took the habit of the order *Notes to the last Florence edition of Vasari, p. 303.

VOL. XII.-20

the church of his own convent of St. Mark at Florence, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, and at Romie in the chapel of Nicholas V., in the Vatican. His small casel pictures are numerous, and to be found in most of the foreign collections, though unhappily the writer can point out none that are accessible in England. There is one in the Louvre, of surpassing beauty, the upper part of which is represented in the already been alluded to (No. 694, p. 26) as a favourite one with the early painters, the Coronation of the Virgin Mary by her son the Redeemer, in the presence of saints and angels. It represents a throne under a rich Gothic canopy, to which there is an ascent by nine steps; on the highest kneels the Virgin, veiled, her hands crossed on her bosom. She is clothed in a red tunic, a blue robe over it, and a royal mantle with a rich border flowing down behind. The features are most delicately lovely, and the expression of the face full of humility and adoration. Christ, seated on the throne, bends forward, and is in the act of placing the crown on her head; on each side are twelve angels, who are playing a heavenly concert with guitars, tambourines, trumpets, viols, and other musical instruments; lower than these, on each side, are forty holy personages of the Old and New Testament; and at the foot of the throne kneel several saints, male and female, among them St. Catherine, St. Agnes, and St. Cecilia, crowned with flowers. Beneath the principal picture there is a row of seven small ones, forming a border, and representing various incidents in the life of St. Dominic. The whole measures about seven and a half feet high by six feet in width. It is painted in distemper; the glories round the heads of the sacred personages are in gold; the colours are the most delicate and vivid imaginable; and the ample draperies have the long folds which recall the school of Giotto; the gaiety and harmony of the tints, the expression of the various heads, the divine rapture of the angels with their air of immortal youth, and the devout reverence of the other personages, the unspeakable serenity and beauty of the whole composition, render this picture worthy of the celebrity it has enjoyed for more than four centuries. It was painted by Frate Angelico for the church of St. Dominic at Fiesole, where it remained till the beginning of the present century. How obtained it does not appear, but it was purchased by the French government in 1812, and exhibited for the first time in the long gallery of the Louvre in 1815; it is now placed in the gallery of drawings at the upper end. A very good set of outlines were engraved and published at Paris, with explanatory notes by A. W. Schlegel; and to those who have no opportunity of seeing the original, these would convey some faint idea of the composition, and of the exquisite and benign beauty of the angelic heads.

It is not known exactly under whom he studied, but | he is said to have been taught by Starnina, the best colourist of that time. The rest of his long life of seventy years presents only one unbroken tranquil stream of placid contentment and pious labours. Except on one occasion, when called to Rome by Pope Nicholas V. to paint in the Vatican, he never left his convent, and then only yielded to the express command of the pontiff. While he was at Rome, the Arch-wood-cut at the head of this essay. The subject has bishopric of Florence became vacant, and the pope, struck by the virtue and learning of Angelico, and the simplicity and sanctity of his life, offered to install him in that dignity, one of the greatest in the power of the papal see to bestow. Angelico refused it from excess of modesty, pointing out at the same time to the notice of the pope a brother of his convent as much more worthy of the honour, and by his active talents more fitted for the office. The pope listened to his recommendation; Frate Antonino was raised to the see, and became celebrated as the best Archbishop of Florence that had been known for two centuries. Meantime Angelico pursued his vocation in the still precincts of his quiet monastery, and being as assiduous as he was devout, he painted a great number of pictures, some in distemper and on a small scale, to which he gave all the delicacy and finish of miniature; and in the churches of Florence many large frescoes with numerous figures nearly life size, as full of grandeur as of beauty. He painted only sacred subjects, and never for money. Those who wished for any work of his hand were obliged to apply to the prior of the convent, from whom Angelico received with humility the order or the permission to execute it, and thus the brotherhood was at once enriched by his talent and edified by his virtue. To Angelico the art of painting a picture devoted to religious purposes was an act of religion, for which he prepared himself by fasting and prayer, imploring on bended knees the benediction of heaven on his work he then, under the impression that he had obtained the blessing he sought, and glowing with what might truly be called inspiration, took up his pencil, and mingling with his carnest and pious humility a singular species of self-uplifted enthusiasm, he could never be persuaded to alter his first draught or composition, believing that which he had done was according to the will of God, and could not be changed for the better by any after-thought of his own or suggestion from others. All the works left by Angelico are in harmony with this gentle, devout, enthusiastic spirit. They are not remarkable for the usual merits of the Florentine school: they are not addressed to the taste of connoisseurs, but to the faith of worshippers. Correct drawing of the human figure could not be expected from one who regarded the exhibition of the undraped form as a sin; in the learned distribution of light and shade, in the careful imitation of nature in the details, and in variety of expression, many of his contemporaries excelled him; but none approached him in that poetical and religious fervour which he threw into his heads of saints and Madonnas. Power is not the characteristic of Angelico; whereever he has had to express energy of action, or bad or angry passions, he has generally failed. In his pictures of the Crucifixion, and the Stoning of St. Stephen, the executioners and the rabble are feeble and often illdrawn, and his fallen angels and devils are anything but devilish; while, on the other hand, the pathos of suffering, of pity, of divine resignation--the expression of extatic faith and hope, or serene contemplation, have never been placed before us as in his pictures. In the heads of his young angels, in the purity and beatitude of his female saints, he has never been excelled-not even by Raphael.

The principal works of Angelico are the frescoes in

Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole died at Rome, in 1455, and is buried there in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

It is a curious circumstance that the key of the chapel of Pope Nicholas V., in which Angelico painted some of his most beautiful frescoes, was for two centuries lost, and few persons were aware of their existence, fewer still set any value on them. In 1769 those who wished to see them were obliged to enter by a window.

LAKES.

LAKES are in the land what islands are in the sea; they are surrounded on all sides by land, as islands are by water. They are sheets of water of greater or less extent, and differ from lagoons in their origin, and from tanks and reservoirs by their being naturally

formed, whereas the latter are the works of man. From ponds and pools it is not so easy to distinguish them, it being difficult to draw the line between a large pond and a small lake. The feature by which, perhaps, they would be best distinguished is this, that a lake is fed by streams either flowing at the surface of the soil or subterraneous; while a pond, though large, is only the accumulation of rain-water in some hollow. Thus ponds are usually dried up in hot weather, while true lakes are only temporarily diminished by heat. Lakes have sometimes been divided into fresh-water lakes and salt-water lakes; though here again it is not easy to draw the line between the two, as from the freshest to the most salt the degrees of saltness are very various.

The principal difference in lakes is this: some have no apparent affluents nor outlet, others have affluents without any visible outlet; some have an outlet without any visible affluents, and others again have both affluents and an outlet.

Lakes without apparent affluents or outlets are comparatively small, and yet they are, relatively speaking, more permanent than larger lakes, because, being fed chiefly by subterraneous springs, they are not liable to be filled by those deposits of earth and sand which are the main cause of the rapid desiccation of such lakes as receive the troubled waters of torrents and rivers. If we follow the usual custom, and call all natural sheets of water lakes, then there are many lakes without affluents or outlet. Thus they are very numerous to the northward of the Caspian and in the plains which extend between the Ural Mountains and the Irtish, as also in the great steppe of Baraba, between the Irtish and the Ob. But in truth the greater part of these are more properly ponds, formed of the accumulated waters from rain and melted snow. The largest of them are not more than ten or twelve miles in circumference and six or seven feet deep; indeed, many of them are quite dried up towards the end of summer. Some are salt, and yield considerable profit. Their saltness is not easily accounted for; the more particularly as among and close to those that are salt there are many whose waters are quite fresh. The opinions of naturalists on the subject of salt lakes are very various, and no satisfactory theory has, perhaps, yet been offered. Small lakes of the kind of which we have been speaking, that is to say, such as have neither affluents nor outlet, sometimes occur in hollows resembling the craters of extinct volcanoes. We say resembling, because, although Dolomieu, Spallanzani, and others maintain the existence of lakes in such craters, M. Desmarest, upon apparently very good reasons, absolutely denies the possibility of lakes existing in the craters of extinct volcanoes. The celebrated Lake of Averno is, according to Ferber and Breislak, situated in an antient crater.

Of lakes which receive affluents without having any visible outlet, the largest is the Caspian. The Aral and the Dead Sea, or Lake Asphaltites, are also examples of this kind of lake, which is very common in Asia. Some of them are of vast extent; such, for instance, is the lake Terkiri in Tibet, twenty-seven leagues long and nine leagues wide, and the lake Hoho-nor, or Koko-nor, in the same country, whose surface is two hundred and forty square leagues. It was at one time thought that the saltness of certain lakes was due to the circumstance of their receiving the saline impurities of their affluents, which impurities could not escape for want of an outlet: but, on the one hand, the Durrah in Segistan, which receives the Helmund and has no outlet, is perfectly fresh; and, on the other, there are many salt lakes which have no affluents: hence the saltness of lakes must have some

other cause. The question has sometimes been asked, what becomes of the excess of water brought into lakes having no outlet? Halley thought evaporation was all-sufficient to carry it off, and his opinion is highly plausible. If, however, it shall be found, by actual experiment, that a greater quantity of water is brought into a lake, without apparent issue, than can be carried off by evaporation, the natural conclusion will be that the surplus is lost by infiltration or subaqueous drainage. Several of these lakes have formerly had outlets, but water has ceased to flow from them, because the lakes have sunk in consequence of receiving now a much smaller quantity of water than formerly. There are many lakes in Europe at the present day whose outlets are diminishing; such, among others, are the lakes Balaton and Neusiedel in Hungary. The extent of surface of the former is very great compared with the quantity of water which it receives, so that the evaporation is rapidly diminishing the lake, and the river Schio, which used to carry off its superabundant waters and pour them into the Danube, is now nothing more than a slip of bog; and as for the lake Neusiedel, it appears formerly to have communicated with the Danube by the Raab, into which it emptied its waters, and with which it has now no other communication than by a swamp. The Aral also, it is generally believed, once communicated with the Caspian.

Those lakes which have an outlet without any apparent affluent are fed by subaqueous springs, which, bursting out in a hollow, must fill it up before the waters can flow off in a stream. These lakes are generally situated at considerable elevations above the level of the sea. Thus there is one on Monte Rotondo in Corsica, at an elevation of 9069 feet. From lakes of this kind some of the largest rivers take their rise; the Volga, for instance, springs from such a lake in the government of Tver in Russia.

Lakes which receive one or more tributary streams, and have a visible outlet for their superabundant waters, are the most common and the largest; such are the lakes of Switzerland and of the north of Italy, the lakes Ladoga, Onega, Peipus, and Ilmen in Russia; the Saïma, in Finland; the Wener, in Sweden; the Enara, in Lapland, &c. In Asia there are the NorZaïssan and the Baikal, &c. In North America, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario are examples of this kind of lake; each of them receives several affluents; and the grand outlet of the whole is the river St. Lawrence.

Lakes owe their origin to different circumstances: some from the sinking of the soil by the falling in of subterraneous caverns; such is the supposed origin of the Baïkal: others are caused by earthquakes; such a lake was formed in the province of Quito in 1797: some by the fall of mountains, as the Oschenen-see in the canton of Berne; or by lava currents damming up the stream, as the lakes Aidat and Cassiere in Auvergne, in France. Many are supposed to be the remains of the universal ocean which once covered the earth, and their waters, originally salt, have become fresh from their receiving constant supplies of fresh water while the salt was continually let off by their outlets.

Almost all lakes are in progress of diminution, although this is not everywhere apparent. The detrital matter brought in by their affluents is imperceptibly filling up their beds; and if regular observations were made, many provinces which owe much of their prosperity to their lakes would find the time fast approaching when these pieces of water will become mere pestilential marshes.

Certain lakes exhibit remarkable phenomena: thus some have floating islands in them, as is the case with

a small lake near St. Omer. The lake Gerdau, in Prussia, has a floating island, on which a hundred head of cattle may be seen pasturing. In the lake Kolk, in Osnabrück, there is a floating island, on which fine elms are growing. Some of these floating islands sink and rise again; thus in the lake Râlang in Smoland, a province of Sweden, there is a floating island which appeared and disappeared ten successive times between the years 1696 and 1766. Other floating islands are found in East Gothland and many other places. Some subterranean lakes are supposed to have become so by the formation and subsequent fixing of floating islands, which successively uniting have finished by forming a solid crust over the water.

Some lakes have a double bottom, which, rising and sinking alternately, changes the apparent depth of the lake: there is a lake of this kind at Jemtia in Sweden. Some lakes are said to have no bottom; but this is an impossibility: the fact is, that the sound does not reach the bottom, either for want of sufficient weight of lead or length of line, or else it is carried away by under-currents.

In Poland there exists a lake said to render brown the skin of those who bathe in it. Certain mineral waters impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen are well known to change from white to brown the skins of those persons who have been under a course of metallic medicines, or who use metallic cosmetics, and some such circumstance may be the case with the lake in question.

Some lakes are intermittent: the most remarkable of this kind are those of Cirknitz in Illyria and Kauten in Prussia. They are supposed to be occasioned by a play of natural siphons, upon the same principle as intermittent fountains.

dreadful noise it makes, and which announces internal revolutions similar to that which occasioned the rupture of the dykes of the Lake Gousinoï in Douaria. Some lakes have been observed to possess a petrifying or an incrusting property. The latter is merely a deposition of carbonate of lime. This, being dissolved by an excess of acid in the waters of certain springs, is precipitated whenever the waters of these sources coming into the lakes are exposed to the air and lose their excess of acid.

There is an interesting phenomenon presented by the Lake of Zürich, called the flowering of the lake. When this takes place the surface of the water is seen covered with a yellow scum or froth, which upon examination is found to be a very minute vegetation.

There are various other phenomena presented by lakes, but the most singular of them all perhaps is the attractive force of the mud at the bottom of some lakes, which is such that boats can hardly make their way through the water. The Lake Rose and one or two more in Canada are of this kind. Mackenzie describes the fact in these words:" At the portage or carrying-place of Martres, on Rose Lake, the water is only three or four feet deep, and the bottom is muddy. I have often plunged into it a pole twelve feet long, with as much ease as if I merely plunged it into the water. Nevertheless this mud has a sort of magical effect upon the boats, which is such that the paddles can with difficulty urge them on. This effect is not perceptible on the south side of the lake, where the water is deep, but is more and more sensible as you approach the opposite shore. I have been assured that loaded boats have often been in danger of sinking, and could only be extricated by being towed by lighter boats. As for myself, I have never been in danger of foundering, but I have several times had great difficulty in passing this spot with six stout rowers, whose utmost efforts could scarcely overcome the attraction of the mud. A similar phenomenon is observed on the lake Saginaga, whose bottom attracts the boats with such force that it is only with the greatest difficulty that a loaded boat can be made to advance; fortunately the spot is only about four hundred yards over." Captain Back has confirmed the above by his late observations. 1

The Lake of Geneva is subject to a subaqueous wind, called the Vaudaise, which, rising to the surface, produces an agitation of the water which is sometimes dangerous to the navigation of the lake. Near Boleslaw in Bohemia there is a lake of unknown depth, from the bottom of which there rise, in winter, such violent puffs of wind, that they are said to send up into the air masses of ice of several hundred pounds weight. The sudden escape of gases formed in the bowels of the earth, and perhaps the air forcibly driven out from caverns by the water rushing into and Lakes differ very much in temperature, transpafilling them up, may be among the causes of this re-rency, and in the colour of their waters. Lakes fed by markable phenomenon. the water of melted snows in summer are generally much colder than would be thought conformable with the season; but the difference is principally in the lower waters, which, being cold, remain at the bottom by reason of their greater density. Some lakes never freeze, which is owing to their great depth. This is the case with Loch Ness in Scotland, which is eight hundred and ten feet deep in the deepest part. Lakes are not subject to tides; at least the amount of tide, so far as observation goes, seems not to be ascertained.

The Seiches are a phenomenon which has hitherto been observed only in the Lake of Geneva and some other of the Swiss and Italian lakes, though it is probably common to many others. It consists in an occasional undulation of the water, something like a tide wave, which rises occasionally to the height of five feet. Its cause is not exactly known, though it is most probably due to a local and temporary change of atmospheric pressure. Water-spouts are a phenomenon sometimes seen on lakes as on the sea; they have been observed on the lakes of Zürich and Geneva.

Certain lakes seem to be placed in the immediate neighbourhood of centres or foci of electrical attraction; thus in the lake Huron there is a bay over which electrical clouds are perpetually hovering. It is affirmed that no person has ever traversed it without hearing thunder. The proximity of this lake to the American magnetic pole, that is, to the spot where the magnetic intensity is greatest, not where the dip is greatest, may perhaps have some influence in producing so remarkable a phenomenon.

Near Beja in Portugal there is a lake which is said to announce the approach of a storm by a tremendous rumbling. In Siberia also, near the little river Orcibat, which flows into the Abakan, there is, according to Pallas, a lake called the Roaring Lake, from the

The remarkable transparency of certain lakes is truly astonishing: thus the waters of Lake Superior are so pellucid, that, according to Mr. Heriot, the fish and rocks may be seen at a depth incredible to persons who have never visited these regions. The density of the medium on which the vessel moves appears scarcely to exceed that of the atmosphere, and the traveller becomes impressed with awe at the novelty of his situation. Elliot, in his 'Letters from the North of Europe,' says "Nothing appears more singular to a foreigner than the transparency of the waters of the Norwegian lakes. At the depth of one hundred or one hundred and twenty feet, the surface of the ground beneath is perfectly visible; sometimes it may be seen wholly covered with shells, sometimes only sprinkled with them; now a submarine forest presents itself to view, and now a subaqueous mountain:" and Sir A. de

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