button to main menu  Martineau's Complete Guide to the English Lakes, 1855

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Page 168:-
and up its slopes,- the paths to the coppermine,- and a solitary house, looking very desolate among its bare fields and fences. The precipice called Dow (or Dhu) Crag appears in front ere long; and then the traveller must turn to the right, and get up the steep mountain side to the top, as he best may. Where Dow Crag and the Old Man join, a dark and solemn tarn lies beneath the precipice, as he will see from above, whence it lies due west, far below. Round three sides of this Gait's Tarn, the rock is precipitous; and on the other, the crags are piled in grotesque fashion, and so as to afford,- as does much of this side of the mountain,- a great harbourage for foxes, against which the neighbouring population are for ever waging war. The summit is the edge of a line of rocks overhanging another tarn,- Low Water,- which is 2,000 feet above the sea level, while the summit of the Old Man is 2,632. On this rock, a "Man" formerly stood; but it was removed by the Ordnance Surveyors, who erected another, much inferior in convenience; for the first contained a chamber, welcome to shepherds and tourists overtaken by bad weather. The mountain consists chiefly of a very fine roofing slate, from which a large tract of country is supplied, and in which a very important trade was formerly carried on. Several of the quarries are now deserted. From the earliest recorded times, there have been works here for the extraction of copper; and at present it is no unusual thing for £2,000 per month to be paid away in wages. The works commence at about half a-mile up the mountain, on its east side; and there is a large estab-
gazetteer links
button -- Coniston Copper Mines
button -- "Gait's Tarn" -- Goat's Water
button -- Low Water
button -- Old Man of Coniston ascent 1855
button -- Old Man of Coniston, The
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