|  | 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-
 
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