Page:Cornwall; Cambridge county geographies.djvu/21

 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 5 as Dartmoor, are yet fine, and Brown Willy, Rough Tor, and Kilmar are really noble tors. On the Bodmin moors is Dozmare Pool, the only lake, excepting Loe Pool, that exists in Cornwall. It is small and shallow. There were others formerly, now encroached on or smothered by morass. In Cornwall it is quite possible to take a stride from the richest vegetation into the abomination of desolation. It has been said in mockery that Cornwall does not grow wood enough to make coffins for the people. The old timber was cut down to supply the furnaces for smelting tin, and it is true that there is not in Cornwall as magnificent timber as may be seen in other counties, but the valleys are everywhere well wooded, and the Cornish elm, that grows almost like a trimmed poplar, stands up lank above the lower trees and coppice. 3. Size, Shape, Boundaries. Cornwall bears a certain resemblance to Italy, each is like a leg or boot, but Italy stands a-tiptoe to the south, whereas Cornwall is thrust out to the west. But, whereas Italy is kicking Sicily as a football, Cornwall has but the shattered group of the Scilly Isles at its toe. It touches but one other county, Devonshire, on the east ; on all other sides it is washed by the sea, the Atlantic on the north and the English Channel on the south. The heel is the curious projection of the Lizard, and the toe is Land's End. On the east the river Tamar forms mainly the boundary between itself and Devon, except just