Before you leave Kendal, visit the Castlelaw-hill. This is an artificial mount, that overlooks the town, and faces the castle, and surpasses it in antiquity, being one of those hills called Laws, where in ancient times distributive justice was administered. From its present appearance, it seems to have been converted to different purposes, but though well situated as a watch upon the castle, it could never be a proper place to batter it from, as has been reported. To Lancaster, by Burton-in-Kendal,+ is 22 miles. Observe on the left, before you defence. The tower is a square building, defended by two square turrets and battlements. One of them is over the great entrance, and as a guard-room capable of containing ten or a dozen men with embrazures. The winding stair-case terminates in a turret, which defends the other entrance. Burn's Westmorland. * An obelisk was erected on the top of this hill, by a subscription of the inhabitants of Kendal, in 1788, which, seen from almost every part of the vale, is a handsome object, and being the centenary of the revolution in 1688, has the following inscription :- + (Coccium, Rav. Chor.)-On the edge of a mountain, about a mile and a half to the north of this town, is a reach Burton, Farlton-knot, a beautiful naked limestone mountain, said to resemble much in form the rock of Gibralter. Between Burton and Lancaster, see Duuald-mill,* a subterraneous cavern, with a brook running through it, and many curious petrifactions, in style and kind like those in Derbyshire. LANCASTER Finis chartaque viæque. natural curiosity, called Claythrop-clints, or Curwenwoodkins, which many tourists would probably like to see. It consists of a large plain of naked limestone-rock, a little inclined to the horizon, which has evidently once been one continued calcarious mass, in a state of softness like that of mud at the bottom of a pond. It is now deeply rent with a number of fissures, of 6, 8, or 10 inches wide, just in the form of those which take place in clay or mud that is dried in the sun. It also exhibits such channels in its surface, as can only be accounted for by supposing them formed by the ebbing of copious waters, (probably those of the deluge) before the matter was become hard. It is five or six hundred yards in length, and about two hundred in breadth. There are several other limestone plains of the same kind in the neighbourhood, but this is the most remarkable and extensive. In the crevices of the rock, the botanist may meet with the belladonna, or solanum lethale (the deadly nightshade) and some other curious plants. X. By a trigonometrical process, the height of this mountain was found to be 594 feet above the level of the turnpike. *This place is particularly described in Article VI. of the following Addenda. A TABLE OF THE Height of Mountains and Lakes, SEEN IN THIS TOUR, AND OF OTHERS IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD, ALL TAKEN FROM THE LEVEL OF THE SEA. Goatscar, summit of the road from Hawes-water to Hillbell, N. W. of Kendal Carrock, west-pike, Coldbeck Knoutberry-hill, near Dent Kendal Pendale-hill, Lancashire Whinfell Beacon, N. E, of Kendal Rivington-pike, between Bolton and Chorley, Lancashire 400 812 744 728 663 Town of Kendal 366 340 216 46 Ben-y-bourd still higher, which, with Laghin-y-gair and Benewewish, are never without snow. IN OTHER PARTS, By M. T. Bouritt. 1080 1450 Summit of Dole, the highest mountain of Jura 1800 Valley of Chamouni, in Savoy 1121 Ridge de Brevin, a Glacier, in the valley of Chamouni 2949 Valley of Mountainvert, in Savoy 1865 Lake of Geneva, at the lower passage of the Rhone 398 4.56 By different Authors. Highest part of the Table, at the Cape of Good Hope 1153 Pike Rucia in the island of Madeira 1689 From this survey of mountains it appears that Scafell is the highest in England, yet below the point of permanent snow. It has been observed, by the French accademicians, that amongst the Cordilleras, in the province of Quito, Petchinca and Carason are the highest accessible mountains, and that all of greater heights are vested with eternal snow. On the Glaciers, snow is permanent at a much inferior height; and where the sun's rays fall more obliquely, less height is found the boundary between temporary and eternal snow. But no mountain in England touches the zone of barrenness that intervenes between this region and the limits of vegetation. Sheep pasture the summits of Snowden, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw, and barrenness only prevails where rock and precipice are invincible obstacles to vegetation. |