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Page 262:-
We were now on the base on which Ingleborough stands, [1] and
greatly elevated above all the western country. Our distance from
the bottom, where the steep ascent of this high mountain begins,
was about a mile, in a direct horizontal line over rocks and
pits. The fineness and clearness of the day, however, induced us
to ascend its side, and gain its summit. Though we had many a
weary and slippery step, we thought ourselves amply repaid, when
we got to the top, with the amusement we received in viewing the
several extensive and diversified prospects, and in making our
observations, as botanists and natural historians, on its
productions and contents. All the country betwixt us and the sea,
to the extent of forty, fifty, and sixty miles, from the
north-west, by the west, to the south-west, lay stretched out
beneath us, like a large map, with the roads, rivers, villages,
towns, seats, hills and vales, capes and bays, in succession.
Elevation is a great leveller; all the hills and little mountains
in the country before us, appeared sunk in our eyes, and in the
same plain with the adjacent meadows. To the north-west, the
prospect was terminated, at the distance of forty or fifty miles,
by a chain of rugged mountains in Westmorland, Lancashire, and
Cumberland, which appeared as barriers against the fury of the
ocean. To the west, the Irish Sea extends as far as the eye can
penetrate, except where the uniformity of the watery prospect is
interrupted by the isles of Man and Anglesey. The blue mountains
in Wales terminated our further progress, after we had traced out
the winding of the coast all the way from Lancaster, by Preston
and Liverpool. A curious deceptio visus presented itself: all the
vales between us and the sea appeared lower than its surface,
owing to the sky and earth both apparently tending to a line
drawn from the eye parallel to the horizon, where they at last
appeared to meet. To the east and north, the prospect was soon
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[1]
The word Ingleborough seems to be derived from the Saxon word
ingle, which signifies a lighted fire; and borough, or burgh,
which comes originally from the Greek word purgos, and signifies
a watch tower (the labials p and b being often changed into each
other) for here a beacon is erected, on which a fire used to be
made for a signal of alarm in times of rebellion or invasion.
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