But Boethius Lived At No Great Distance; If He Never
Saw The Lake, He Must Have Been Very Incurious, And If He Had Seen
It, His Veracity Yielded To Very Slight Temptations.
Lough Ness, though not twelve miles broad, is a very remarkable
diffusion of water without islands.
It fills a large hollow
between two ridges of high rocks, being supplied partly by the
torrents which fall into it on either side, and partly, as is
supposed, by springs at the bottom. Its water is remarkably clear
and pleasant, and is imagined by the natives to be medicinal. We
were told, that it is in some places a hundred and forty fathoms
deep, a profundity scarcely credible, and which probably those that
relate it have never sounded. Its fish are salmon, trout, and
pike.
It was said at fort Augustus, that Lough Ness is open in the
hardest winters, though a lake not far from it is covered with ice.
In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first
question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is
strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly
detected. Accuracy of narration is not very common, and there are
few so rigidly philosophical, as not to represent as perpetual,
what is only frequent, or as constant, what is really casual. If
it be true that Lough Ness never freezes, it is either sheltered by
its high banks from the cold blasts, and exposed only to those
winds which have more power to agitate than congeal; or it is kept
in perpetual motion by the rush of streams from the rocks that
inclose it.
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