To give a good idea of the lie of the land there is nothing like a raised map. A careful and detailed coloured model of the neighbourhood (six inches to the mile, with the same vertical scale, so that the slopes and heights are not exaggerated, but true to nature) was made in 1882 under the direction of Professor Ruskin, who presented it to the Coniston Institute, where it has been placed in the Museum. II.--THE LAKE. Coniston Water it is called by the public now-a-days, but its proper name is Thurston Water. So it is written in all old documents, maps, and books up to the modern tourist period. In the deed of 1196 setting forth the boundaries of Furness Fells it is called _Thorstanes Watter_, and in lawyer's Latin _Turstini Watra_, which proves that the lake got its title from some early owner whose Norse name was Thorstein; in Latin, Turstinus; in English, Thurston. In the same way Ullswater was Ulf's water, and Thirlmere was Thorolf's mere, renamed in later times from a new owner Leathes water--though in the end the older title finally prevailed. As a first rough survey it will be convenient to take the steam gondola, and check off the landmarks seen on her trip, an all too short half-hour, down to the waterfoot. The start is from the pier near the head of the lake, at the quaint boathouse built seventy years ago, in what was then called the Gothic style, for the late Mr. John Beever of the Thwaite--the house on the slope of the Guards Wood above the Waterhead Hotel. The boathouse stands on a promontory made by Yewdale Beck, which falls into the lake close at hand, and brings down with every flood fresh material to build its embankment farther and farther into the lake. So rapidly is its work done that a boulder is pointed out, twenty yards inland, which was always surrounded by water twenty or thirty years ago. Another cause helps to hasten their work, for it is in this part that the waves under the prevailing south-west winds attain their greatest size and strength. The steamer captain who lives here says that he has measured waves 65 feet long from crest to crest, five feet high from trough to crest. These great waves dash back the stones and gravel brought down by the becks and spread it northwards, embanking it in a ridge under the water from this point to Fir Point opposite. Dr. H. R. Mill, by his soundings in 1893, found the deepest part of the little northern reach to be hardly more than 25 feet; this was close to the actual head of the water, showing that it is the débris brought down by the Yewdale and Church Becks which is silting up the bed.