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The railways skirt the lake district, but do not, and
cannot, penetrate it: for the obvious reason that railways
cannot traverse or pierce granite mountains or span broad
lakes. If the time should ever come when iron roads will
intersect the mountainous parts of Westmorland and
Cumberland, that time is not yet; nor is in view,- loud as
have been the lamentations of some residents, as if it were
to happen to-morrow. No one who has ascended Dunmail Raise,
or visited the head of Coniston Lake, or gone by Kirkstone
to Patterdale, will for a moment imagine that any
conceivable railway will carry strangers over those passes,
for generations to come. It is a great thing that steam can
convey travellers round the outskirts of the district, and
up to its openings. This is now effectually done; and it is
all that will be done by the steam locomotive during the
lifetime of anybody yet born. The most important of the
openings thus reached is that of WINDERMERE.
The mountain region of Cumberland and Westmorland has for
its nucleus the cluster of tall mountains, of which Scawfell
is the highest. There are the loftiest peaks and
deepest valleys. These are surrounded by somewhat lower
ridges and shallower vales; and these again by others, till
the uplands are mere hills. and the valleys scarcely sunk at
all. It is into these exterior undulations that the railways
penetrate; and, at the first ridge of any steepness, they
must stop. It is this which decides the termination of the
Windermere railroad, and which prevents the lateral railways
from coming nearer than the outer base of the hills on the
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