IN THE LANDS OF THE LAKES
If we really had spent the month of August in a desert what a relief it would be to find ourselves, as we do now at the very beginning of the golden autumn time, in the lands of the lakes with their cool, fresh breezes, the whisper of leaves and the glint of waters dancing in the sun. The best of it is that the deserts are just as delightful as the lands of pleasant waters, if you only visit them in imagination as we have been doing; and they make the lakes all the more attractive by way of contrast.
I. How the Lakes are Born
But where are the lands of the lakes? I may say to start with, it's no use looking for many lakes in the lands of the big caves. Caves and lakes don't seem to get on together any more than do caves and boulders.
When this story of the lakes was first told to a certain group of young people some of the youngest of whom had not forgotten the giants or the language of their fairy tales, I put it in this way:
"The rains and the rivers, with the help of some other things, have made all the lakes in the world. One of these helpers is a bright-eyed creature with two legs; another a little creature with four legs and a third a great big thing with no legs at all!" (I said it like this: "G-R-E-A-T B-I-G T-H-I-N-G," and opened my eyes wide for the benefit of the younger members of our "pebble parties," as these little gatherings came to be called.)
The great big things, as you have already guessed, were the glaciers of the Ice Age. We have had specimens of their work in the story of how the Great Lakes were made.
The four-legged lake makers are the beavers. They live on the margins of quiet, shallow ponds—really little lakes—which they make for themselves by gnawing down trees and building dams.
And the bright-eyed creature with two legs—can't you guess who he is? If you never helped make little lakes of your own by damming up a brook or a roadside rivulet, you have missed a lot of fun.
WIDE RANGE OF SIZE IN LAKE FAMILY