When the outline is ascertained in this way, and marked out, the improver can, with the occasional aid of the leveller, easily determine where and how he can make alterations and improvements. He will then excavate along the new margin, until he makes the water line (as shown by the instrument) penetrate to all the various bays, inlets, and curves of the proposed lake. In making these irregular variations, sometimes bold and striking, at others fainter and less perceptible, he can be guided, as we have already suggested, by no fixed rules, but such as he may deduce from the operations of nature on the same materials, or by imbuing his mind with the beauty of forms in graceful and refined art. In highly polished scenery, elegant curves and graceful sweeps should enter into the composition of the outline; but in wilder or more picturesque situations, more irregular and abrupt variations will be found most suitable and appropriate.
The intended water outline once fully traced and understood, the workmen can now proceed to form the banks. All this time the improver will keep in mind the supposed appearance of the bank of a natural lake stripped of its vegetation, etc., which will greatly assist him in his progress. In some places the banks will rise but little from the water, at others one or two feet, and at others perhaps three, four, or six times as much. This they will do, not in the same manner in all portions of the outline, sloping away with a like gradual rise on both sides, for this would inevitably produce tameness and monotony, but in an irregular and varied manner; sometimes falling back gradually, sometimes starting up perpendicularly, and again overhanging the bed of the lake itself. All this can be easily effected while the excavations of those portions of the bed which require deepening are going on. And the better portions of the soil obtained from the latter, will serve to raise the banks when they are too low.
