button to main menu  Observations on Picturesque Beauty, page 95
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vol.1 p.95
From the brisk circulation of fluid through these animated bodies of water, a great master of nature has nobly styled them, living lakes:

----- Speluncae,
Vivique lacus. -----
and indeed nothing, which is not really alive, deserves the appellation better. For besides the vital stream, which principally feeds them, they receive a thousand little gurgling rills, which trickling through a thousand veins, give life, and spirit to every part.
The principal incidents observable in lakes, are, their line of boundary - their islands - and the different appearances of the surface of the water.
  lake, boundary
The line of boundary is very various. Sometimes it is boldly broken by projecting promontory - sometimes indented by a creek - sometimes it undulates along an irregular shore - and sometimes swells into a winding bay. In each of these circumstances it is susceptible of beauty; in all, it certainly deserves attention: for as it is a line of separation between land and water, it is of course so conspicuous a boundary, that the least harshness in it is discernible. I
have
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