Valuable Earth Find In Lake District

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6519, 7 April 1931, Page 7

Valuable Earth Find In Lake District

RAISES ALARM IN ENGLISH BEAUTY SPOT. WINDERMERE, England, Feb. 16. The discovery in the Lake District of a deposit of a kind of earth hitherto unknown in England has aroused serious problems in that famous area. This earth is valuable, being used for preventing steam and heat escaping out of boilers. Until now it has been imported from abroad. The prospect of its being manufactured in the Lakes on a large scale, involving factories with high chimneys and the consequent disfigurement of tho district has caused a painful impression among those interested in retaining the natural boauties of the landscape. Fortunately the county of Westmorland, in which tho territory involved is situated, has developed a regional plan with proposals for averting the calamity. The programme set forth by the planners was recently issued. It involves a comprehensive attempt to preserve the district from the slow and relentless attack that has been in process for more than 150 years. The report also recommends ways of controlling possible factories and industries due to the extension of electric power.

The poet Wordsworth urged, more than a century ago, that more care should bo taken in tho design and the colour of houses, and laid down rules for producing more harmony between landscape and villa. He wrote: “The author will be joined by persons of pure taste throughout the whole island, who by their visits, often repeated, to the lakes of the north of England, testify that they deem tho district a sort ol national property.”