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One great source of true graphite for many years was the famous mine at Borrowdale, in Cumberland, but this is now almost exhausted. The vein lay between strata of slate, and was from eight to nine feet thick. As much as £100,000 is said to have been realised from it in one year. Extensive supplies of graphite are found in rocks of the Laurentian age in Canada.

From thence we went to Borrowdale, by the side of Derwentwater, and afterward to Ulswater and home by the fine pass of Kirkstone. On my return, I found the Duke and Duchess of Argyle had been to see us. The time of closing the despatch bag has come and I must hurry over my delight at the scenery of the lakes. I could have spent a month there, much to my mind.

Were you clad like patient Grisel I should be content. Besides you have no end of pretty gowns. And you are to be dressed for travelling, remember; for I am going to carry you off to Lodore directly we are married, and you will have to clamber up the rocky bed of the waterfall to see the sun set behind the Borrowdale hills in your wedding gown.

Brockedon contrived a method by which the dust of the purer portions of the mineral found in Borrowdale might be recomposed into a mass as dense and compact as native graphite. The powder of graphite is first carefully prepared and freed from air, and placed under a powerful press on a strong steel die, with air- tight fittings.

And then came the sunset, a sunset to be dreamed of. Skiddaw was a pyramid of rosy flame; great saffron seas of light lay over the Catbells, the immense shoulders of Borrowdale were purple, and the lake was truly a sea of glass and fire. Nor was this a singular and unmatched day. For a whole month the pageant of the snow lasted.

In front we have a giant camp an encamped army of tent-like mountains which, by an inverted arch, gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left Derwentwater and Lodore full in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale. Behind is the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger.

Owing to this character of his, statesmen from a distance from beyond Kendal, or from Borrowdale, of greater wealth than he, would send their sons to be farm-servants for a year or two with him, in order to learn some of his methods before setting up on land of their own. When Susan, his daughter, was about seventeen, one Michael Hurst was farm-servant at Yew Nook.

They stood in a kind of natural hall, like that "pillared shade" under the yews of Borrowdale, which Wordsworth has made immortal: beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked With unrejoicing berries, Ghostly shapes May meet at noon-tide; Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton And Time the Shadow:

The best ore produced at the Borrowdale mine sells for thirty shillings a pound. All the ore extracted from the mine is sent direct to London before a particle is sold." Buttermere is a mere hamlet, comprising a small episcopal chapel, only a few farm-houses, with the Victoria and another inn for the accommodation of visitors.

John and the Borrowdale mountains. BUTTERMERE stands near the foot of the lake, and by Seatoller is fourteen miles from Keswick. Taking the vale of Newlands by the way, the distance is much less. In the vicinity of Seatoller is the celebrated mine of plumbago, or black lead.