The Lune, the Kent, the Winter, and the Leveu drain the basin of Morecambe Bay. The Lune rises on the northern side of the Cum brian ridge. It passes Orton and Kirkby Lona&le, a little below which it passes into Lancashire. No part of its course of 27 miles in Westmorland is navigable. The Kent rises at the foot of Iligh-street, in the Cumbrian ridge, and after receiving the Sprint and the Bannis dale, or Mintbeek, it flows into Morecambe Bay, along with the small rivers Pool and Beelo, or Betha, which there join it. Its whole course of 23 miles belongs to Westmorland : it is not navigable. The Mester, also called the Pool, rises in Westmorland, and flows south 10 miles, along the border of Westmorland and of Furness in Lancashire, into Morecambe Bay. The Leven, which flows out of Windermere, belongs to Lancashire ; but the Rothay, or Raiaebeck, which drains the valley of Grasmere, the streams which drain the valleys of Great and Little Langdale, and the Troutbeck, which all flow into Windermere, and may be regarded as the upper waters of the Leven, belong to Westmorland. Elterwater, Grasmere, Itydal Water, and some other small lakes, or tarns, are connected with the streams which flow into Windermere. Windermere belongs by its position rather to LANCASHIRE, under which county it has been de cribed ; but the fisheries (which comprise all the lake) are held uuder the barony of Kendal by the payment of certain lord's rents, and they are also rated and pay to the relief of the poor in Westmorland.
For economical or commercial purposes the rivers and lakes of West. morland are of little importance; but in combination with the rugged mountains and the secluded valleys amid which they are found, they give to the county a high degree of picturesque beauty. "The forma of the mountains," says Wordsworth, in his ' Scenery of the Lakes,' "are eudlessly diversified, sweeping easily or boldly in simple majesty, abrupt and precipitous, or soft and elegant. In magnitude and grandeur they are individually inferior to the moat celebrated of those in some other parts of the island ; but in the combinations which they make, towering above each other, or lifting themselves in ridges like the waves of a tumultuous sea, and in the beauty and variety of their surfaces and colours, they are surpassed by none." The mountains are generally covered with turf, rendered rich and green by the mois ture of the climate; forming in some places an unbroken extent of pasturage, in others laid partially bare by torrents and burstinga of water from the mountains iu heavy rains. Wood is not abundant ; the want of timber-trees is particularly felt, but coppices are toler ably numerous. The trees are chiefly oak, ash, birch, and a few elms, with underwood of hazel, holly, and white and black thorns. Scotch firs, beeches, larches, and limes have been introduced of late years. Fern is commonly found on the mountains ; heath and furze are only occasionally found.
The valleys are for the most part winding, and in many the wind ings are abrupt and intricate; the bottom of the valleys is most commonly formed by a comparatively spacious gently-declining area, level as the surface of a lake, except where broken by rocks and hilly that rise up like so many islands from the plain.
The smell size of the lakes is favourable to the production of varied landscapes, and their boundary-lines are either gracefully or boldly indented ; in some parts rugged steeps, admitting of no culti vation, descend into the water; iu others, gently sloping lawns and rich woods or flat and fertile meadows stretch between the margin of the lake and the mountains. The margin of the lakes is generally
lined either with a fine bluish gravel thrown up by the water, or with patches of reeds and bulrushes; while the surface is variegated by plots of water-lilies. The disproportionate length of some of the lakes would, by making their appearance approximate to that of a river, injure their characteristic beauty, were not this effect prevented, especially in Ulleswater and Haweswater, by the winding shape of the lakes, which prevents their whole extent from being seen at once. The islands are neither numerous nor very beautiful. The water is remarkably pure and crystalline. What are locally termed tarns are small lakes, belonging mostly to small valleys or circular recesses, high up among tho mountains. Loughrigg Tarn, near the junction of the valleys of Great and Little Langdale, is one of the most beauti ful. The mountain tarns are difficult of access, and naked, desolate, and gloomy, but impressive from these very characteristics.
The streams of Westmorland are rather large brooks than rivers, with a very limpid water, allowing their rocky or gravelly beds to be aeon to a great depth. The number of torrents and smaller brooks, with their waterfalls and waterbreaks or rapids, is very great. The wide xstuary of the Kent presents at low water a vast expanse of sands.
The lakes and tarns abound with various species of fish, as trout, eel, bass, perch, tench, roach, pike, char, and others. Sea-fish are also abundant on the shore of Morecambe Bay.
Westmorland has only one canal, the Lancaster Canal, which com mences on the east of Kendal, at a height of 144/ feet above the level of the sea, and runs southward with some bends by Burton-in-Kendal to Lancaster and Preston in Lancashire. About 12 miles of the canal are in Westmorland.
The principal coach-roads in the county are the main road from Lancaster to Carlisle and Glasgow; and the road (formerly a mail road) through Stamford, Newark, Doncaster, and Gretabridge, to Car lisle and Glasgow. The Carlisle road enters the county on the south side, at Burton-in-Kendal, 11 miles from Lancaster, and runs north ward by Kendal, Shap, and Brougham, to Penrith; before reaching the last-mentioned town it crosses the Eamont into Cumberland. Roads lead from Kendal south-westward to Ulverstone and Dalton-in Furness ; westward to Bowness and across Windermere by the ferry to Hawkshead, and Coniston-Water in Furnese, and to Egremont and Whitehaven in Cumberland ; north-westward by Ambleside to Kes wick, Cockermouth, and Workington in Cumberland ; north-eastward by Orton to Appleby, with a branch road to Kirkby Stephen and Though; eastward to Sedbergh, Hawes, Askrigg, and Richmond, all in Yorkshire, with a branch from Sedbergh to Kirkby Stephen, and south-eastward by Kirkby Lonsdale to Settle, Skipton, Otley, and Leeds The Preston, Lancaster, and Carlisle railway enters Westmorland near Burton, and proceeds in a generally northern direction to Kendal, where it tnrns north-west for a few miles to Bank Mills, whence it again proceeds northward till it quits the county at Penrith. Its length in Westmorland is about 41 miles. The Windermere railway quits the above at Kendal, and runs in a north-westward direction, 104 miles, to Bowness on Windermere.