Its claim to this singularity need not be wholly rejected, however, on the ground of shallowness, if, to be deeply imbedded, rather than to be deep, be the essential condition. Several of the most credible inhabitants thereabouts have affirmed that they frequently see stars in it at mid-day; but it is also stated that in order to discover that phenomenon, there must be a concurrence of several circumstances, viz: the firmament must be perfectly clear, the air and the water unagitated; and the spectator must be placed at a certain height above the lake, and as much below the summit of the partially surrounding ridge. The impression produced upon travellers a century ago by the features of Blencathra at a considerable elevation, will excite a smile in tourists of the present day. The _Southern_ face of the mountain is "furrowed with hideous chasms." One of these "though by far the least formidable," is described as "unconceivably horrid:" "its width is about two hundred yards, and its depth at least six hundred." Between two of these horrible abysses, and separated from the body of the mountain on all sides by deep ravines, a portion of the hill somewhat pyramidal in shape stands out like an enormous buttress. "I stood upon this," says the narrator, whose account is quoted, "and had on each side a gulf about two hundred yards wide, and at least eight hundred deep; their sides were rocky, bare, and rough, scarcely the appearance of vegetation upon them: and their bottoms were covered with pointed broken rocks." Again he "arrived where the mountain has every appearance of being split; and at the 'bottom' he 'saw hills about forty yards high and a mile in length, which seem to have been raised from the rubbish that had fallen from the mountain.'" From the summit he "could not help observing that the back of this mountain is as remarkably smooth, as the front is horrid." Over this front of Blencathra, the bold and rugged brow which it presents when seen from the road to Matterdale, or from the Vale of St. John's, the view of the country to the south and east is most beautiful. The northern side is, as has been said, remarkably smooth, and in striking contrast to that so ruggedly and grandly broken down towards the south, where every thing around bears evident marks of some great and terrible convulsion of nature.