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LOMENTACE

Volume 10 · 739 words · 1797 Edition

, in botany (from lomentum, a colour colour used by painters), the name of the 33rd order in Linnaeus's Fragments of a Natural Method, consisting of the following genera, many of which furnish beautiful tinctures that are used in dyeing, viz. adenanthera, baumhia, caesalpina, casia, ceratonia, cercis, gleditiae, guilandina, hematoxylin, hymenaea, mimosa, parkinsonia, poinciana, polygama. See Botany, p. 464.

Loch-Lomond, a large lake of Dunbarton or Lennox-shire in Scotland, of which Mr Pennant gives the following description. "Loch-lomond, the last, the most beautiful of the Caledonian lakes. The first view of it from Tarbat presents an extensive serpentine winding amidst lofty hills; on the north, barren, black, and rocky, which darken with their shade that contracted part of the water. On the west side, the mountains are cloathed near the bottoms with woods of oak quite to the water-edge; their summits lofty, naked, and craggy. On the east side, the mountains are equally high; but the tops form a more even ridge parallel to the lake, except where Ben-lomond, like Saul amidst his companions, overtops the rest. The upper parts were black and barren; the lower had great marks of fertility, or at least of industry, for the yellow corn was finely contrasted with the verdure of the groves intermixed with it.

"This eastern boundary is part of the Grampian hills, which extend from hence through the counties of Perth, Angus, Mearns, and Aberdeen. The road runs sometimes through woods, at others is exposed and naked; in some, so steep as to require the support of a wall; the whole the work of the foldery: blest exchange of instruments of destruction, for those that give safety to the traveller, and a polish to the once inaccessible native! Two great head-lands covered with trees separate the first scene from one totally different; the last is called the Point of Firkin. On passing this cape an expanse of water bursts at once on your eye, varied with all the softer beauties of nature. Immediately beneath is a flat covered with wood and corn; beyond, the headlands stretch far into the water, and consist of gentle risings; many have their surfaces covered with wood, others adorned with trees loosely scattered either over a fine verdure or the purple bloom of the heath. Numbers of islands are dispersed over the lake, of the same elevated form as the little capes, and wooded in the same manner; others just peep above the surface, and are tufted with trees; and numbers are so disposed as to form magnificent vistas between.

"Opposite Lufs, at a small distance from shore, is a mountainous isle almost covered with wood; is near half a mile long, and has a most fine effect. I could not count the number of islands, but was told there are 28; the largest two miles long, and stocked with deer.

"The length of this charming lake is 24 Scotch miles; its greatest breadth 8; its greatest depth, which is between the point of Firkin and Ben-lomond, is 120 fathoms. Besides the fish common to the lochs are gunniads, called here poans.

"The surface of Loch-lomond has for several years past been observed gradually to increase, and invade the adjacent shore: and there is reason to suppose that churches, houses, and other buildings, have been lost in the water. Near Lufs is a large heap of stones at a distance from the shore, known by the name of the old church; and about a mile to the south of that, in the middle of a large bay, between Camfraddan and the isle Inch-lavanack, is another heap, said to have been the ruins of a house. To confirm this, it is evident by a passage in Camden's Atlas Britannica, that an island, existing in his time, is now lost; for he speaks of the isle of Camfraddan, placed between the lands of the same name and Inch-lavanack, in which, adds he, was an house and orchard. Besides this proof, large trees with their branches still adhering are frequently found in the mud near the shore, overwhelmed in former times by the increase of water. This is supposed to be occasioned by the vast quantities of stone and gravel that are continually brought down by the mountain rivers, and by the falls off the banks of the Leven; the first filling the bed of the lake, the last impeding its discharge through the bed of the river."