Real World Decision Support Systems

Case Studies 1st Edition Jason

Papathanasiou
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/real-world-decision-support-systems-case-studies-1st
-edition-jason-papathanasiou/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Decision Support Systems VIII Sustainable Data Driven

and Evidence Based Decision Support Fatima Dargam

https://textbookfull.com/product/decision-support-systems-viii-
sustainable-data-driven-and-evidence-based-decision-support-
fatima-dargam/

Deep Learning for Medical Decision Support Systems Utku

Kose

https://textbookfull.com/product/deep-learning-for-medical-
decision-support-systems-utku-kose/

Responsible Software Engineering: With Real-World Case

Studies from Google (Early Release) Daniel J. Barrett

https://textbookfull.com/product/responsible-software-
engineering-with-real-world-case-studies-from-google-early-
release-daniel-j-barrett/

Decision Support Systems VII. Data, Information and

Knowledge Visualization in Decision Support Systems:
Third International Conference, ICDSST 2017, Namur,
Belgium, May 29-31, 2017, Proceedings 1st Edition
Isabelle Linden
https://textbookfull.com/product/decision-support-systems-vii-
data-information-and-knowledge-visualization-in-decision-support-
systems-third-international-conference-icdsst-2017-namur-belgium-
Optimization and Decision Support Systems for Supply
Chains 1st Edition Ana Paula Barbosa Póvoa

https://textbookfull.com/product/optimization-and-decision-
support-systems-for-supply-chains-1st-edition-ana-paula-barbosa-
povoa/

Analytics, data science, & artificial intelligence :

systems for decision support Eleventh Edition Dursun
Delen

https://textbookfull.com/product/analytics-data-science-
artificial-intelligence-systems-for-decision-support-eleventh-
edition-dursun-delen/

Intelligent Decision Support Systems for Sustainable

Computing Paradigms and Applications 1st Edition Arun
Kumar Sangaiah

https://textbookfull.com/product/intelligent-decision-support-
systems-for-sustainable-computing-paradigms-and-applications-1st-
edition-arun-kumar-sangaiah/

Building Isomorphic JavaScript Apps From Concept to

Implementation to Real World Solutions 1st Edition
Jason Strimpel

https://textbookfull.com/product/building-isomorphic-javascript-
apps-from-concept-to-implementation-to-real-world-solutions-1st-
edition-jason-strimpel/

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment for Decision-

Making: Methodologies and Case Studies 1st Edition
Jingzheng Ren (Editor)

https://textbookfull.com/product/life-cycle-sustainability-
assessment-for-decision-making-methodologies-and-case-
studies-1st-edition-jingzheng-ren-editor/
Integrated Series in Information Systems 37
Series Editors: Ramesh Sharda · Stefan Voß

Jason Papathanasiou
Nikolaos Ploskas
Isabelle Linden Editors

Real-World
Decision Support
Systems
Case Studies
Integrated Series in Information Systems
Volume 37

Series editors
Ramesh Sharda
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
Stefan Voß
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6157
Jason Papathanasiou • Nikolaos Ploskas •
Isabelle Linden
Editors

Real-World
Decision Support Systems
Case Studies

123
Editors
Jason Papathanasiou Nikolaos Ploskas
Dept. of Business Administration Dept. of Chemical Engineering
University of Macedonia Carnegie Mellon University
Thessaloniki, Greece Pittsburgh, PA
USA

Isabelle Linden
Dept. of Business Administration
University of Namur
Namur, Belgium

ISSN 1571-0270 ISSN 2197-7968 (electronic)

Integrated Series in Information Systems
ISBN 978-3-319-43915-0 ISBN 978-3-319-43916-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43916-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016960674

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To the Euro Working Group on Decision
Support Systems coordination board and
members, for their continuous and inspiring
commitment on the promotion of the
discipline
Foreword

Decision support systems (DSSs) appeared in the literature by the beginning of

the 1970s. The first developed DSS was developed for executive managers using
personal computers and was called executive information systems. Since this period,
DSS evolved in several directions. The first proposed architecture of these systems
was composed by a database management system, a model base management
system, and a man-machine interaction module. The first step in the evolution
of DSS was based on the introduction of knowledge in the architecture. A new
module was added called the knowledge-based management system as well as
an inference engine. From then on, due to a huge amount of data, the database
management system evolved in line with research on data warehouses, for which
the main concern is to find suitable data for the decision-maker. For the model base
management system, a lot of research has been conducted including several kinds
of models of real decision problems. These models are formulated in different ways
like linear or constraint programming, decision rules, decision trees, etc. Nowadays,
researchers on DSS are still very active and dynamic, and we can notice an
evolution of the name; DSSs are also called in a more general way decision-making
support systems (DMSSs). The number of international journals and international
conferences on this topic is progressing every day. Recently, a new such journal,
the International Journal of Decision Support System Technologies was created,
published by IGI Global. This journal publishes selected papers organized in one
volume per year including four issues composed of four papers. We can also
mention the International Conference on Decision Support System Technologies
organized annually by the Euro Working Group on Decision Support Systems. The
conference attracts every year an international group of researchers, academics,
and practitioners working on decision support systems. Topics covered by both
the journal and the conference are, among others, context awareness, modeling,
and management for DMSS; data capture, storage, and retrieval; DMSS feedback
control mechanisms; function integration strategies and mechanisms; DMSS net-
work strategies and mechanisms; DMSS software algorithms; DMSS system and
user dialog methods; system design, development, testing, and implementation;

vii
viii Foreword

DMSS technology evaluation; and finally DMSS technology organization and

management.
Nevertheless, this research would be without any actual interest if applications
would not be developed and tested in real-life situations. The applications of DSS
or cases of DSS are also very important and allow researchers to implement their
architectures, models, and methodologies in real situations. These implementations
are very valuable for the improvement of the DSS field. Indeed, the idea of this
book, Real-World Decision Support Systems – Case Studies, including the appli-
cation domains of the environment, agriculture and forestry, business and finance,
engineering, food industry, health, production and supply chain management, and
urban planning, is an excellent initiative. Research on the DSS discipline is still very
promising and will be exciting for several decades to come.

Toulouse, France Pascale Zaraté

June 2016
Preface

The number of papers regarding decision support systems (DSSs) has soared during
the recent years, especially with the advent of new technologies. Indeed, if someone
considers DSS as an umbrella term [1], the plurality of research areas covered
is striking: from computer science and artificial intelligence to mathematics and
psychology [3]. It is in this context that the editors of this book felt that there is a gap
in the overall fabric; it was felt that too much attention has been given to theoretical
aspects and individual module design and development. In addition, there have
been many failures in information systems development; poor initial requirements
analysis and design has many times led to a notable lack of success. Indeed, it seems
that the DSS discipline is rather prone to this, tagging the development of such
projects as risky affairs [2].
Moreover, decisions today have to be made in a very complex, dynamic, and
highly unpredictable international environment with various stakeholders, each
with his own separate and sometimes hidden agenda. Right into the center of the
whole decision process is the decision-maker; he has the responsibility for the final
decision and he will most probably bear the consequences. As there is no model
that can integrate all the possible variables that influence the final outcome and the
DSS results have to be combined with the decision-maker’s insights, background,
and experience, the system must facilitate the process at each stage rendering the
user experience concept of great significance.
Bearing the above in mind, the rationale behind this edition is to provide the
reader with a set of cases of real-world DSS, as the book title suggests. The editors
were interested in real applications that have been running for some time and as
such tested in actual situations. And not only that; unsuccessful cases were targeted
as well, systems that at some point of their life cycle were deemed as failures for one
reason or another. If the systems failed, what were the (both implicit and explicit)
reasons for that? How can they be recorded and avoided again? The lessons learned
in both successful and unsuccessful cases are considered invaluable, especially if
one considers the investment size of such projects [4]. The overall and primary
goal in each case is to point out the best practices in each stage of the system life
cycle, from the initial requirements analysis and design phases to the final stages of

ix
x Preface

the project. The cases aim to stimulate the decision-makers and provide firsthand
experiences, recommendations, and lessons learned so that failures can be avoided
and successes can be repeated.
The authors of the chapters of this book were requested to provide information
on a number of issues. They were asked to follow a certain chapter structure, and
their work was rigorously peer-reviewed by the editors and selected reviewers from
the DSS community. The cases are also presented in a constructive, coherent, and
deductive manner, in order to act as showcases for instructive purposes, especially
considering their high complexity. This book consists of one introductory chapter
presenting the main concepts of a decision support system and 12 chapters that
present real-world decision support systems from several domains. The first chapter
by Daniel Power reviews frameworks for classifying and categorizing decision
support systems, while it also addresses the need and usefulness of decision support
system case studies.
Chapter 2 by Malik Al Qassas, Daniela Fogli, Massimiliano Giacomin, and Gio-
vanni Guida presents the design, development, and experimentation of a knowledge-
driven decision support system, which supports decision-making processes that
occur during clinical discussions.
Chapter 3 by Anna Arigliano, Pierpaolo Caricato, Antonio Grieco, and Emanuela
Guerriero proposes a method to integrate decision analysis techniques in high-
throughput clinical analyzers. The proposed method is integrated into a clinical
laboratory information system in order to demonstrate the benefits that it achieves.
Chapter 4 by Andrea Bettinelli, Angelo Gordini, Alessandra Laghi, Tiziano
Parriani, Matteo Pozzi, and Daniele Vigo is about a suite of two decision support
systems for tackling network design problems and energy-production management
problems.
Chapter 5 by Pierpaolo Caricato, Doriana Gianfreda, and Antonio Grieco
analyzes a model-driven decision support system to solve a variant of the cutting
stock problem on a company that produces high-tech fabrics.
Chapter 6 by Mats Danielson, Love Ekenberg, Mattias Göthe, and Aron Larsson
introduces a procurement decision support system implementing algorithms tar-
geted for decision evaluation with imprecise data that it can be used as an instrument
for a more meaningful procurement process.
Chapter 7 by António J. Falcão, Rita A. Ribeiro, Javad Jassbi, Samantha
Lavender, Enguerran Boissier, and Fabrice Brito presents a model-driven evaluation
support system for open competitions within Earth observation topics.
Chapter 8 by Narain Gupta and Goutam Dutta presents the design, development,
and implementation of a model-based decision support system for strategic planning
in process industries.
Chapter 9 by Andreja Jonoski and Abdulkarim H. Seid explains the experiences
in developing and applying a model-driven decision support system in a trans-
boundary river basin context, taking the Nile Basin decision support system as a
case.
Preface xi

Chapter 10 by Manfred J. Lexer and Harald Vacik presents a data-driven decision

support system for forest management that can support all phases of the decision-
making process.
Chapters 11 and 12 by Mário Simões-Marques examine in detail a decision
support system for emergency management. Chapter 11 describes the problem
context, the system requirements and architecture, the knowledge management
process, and the spiral development approach, while Chap. 12 presents the main
features implemented in the proposed decision support system.
Finally, Chap. 13 by Mette Sønderskov, Per Rydahl, Ole M. Bøjer, Jens Erik
Jensen, and Per Kudsk presents a knowledge-driven decision support system for
weed control that offers herbicide dose suggestions based on a large database of the
existing knowledge of herbicides and herbicide efficacies.
We are very delighted to have included in this book a set of high-quality and
interesting pieces of research, authored by researchers and industrial partners com-
ing from different research institutions, universities, and companies across different
continents. We are grateful to all reviewers and authors for the collaboration and
work they have put into this book. We especially want to thank Daniel Power for
writing the introductory chapter that introduces the main concepts that define a
decision support system and prepares the readers for the remaining chapters of this
book.
We hope that you will also enjoy reading the book, and we hope the presented
“good” and “bad” practices on developing and using a decision support system can
be useful for your research.

Thessaloniki, Greece Jason Papathanasiou

Pittsburgh, PA, USA Nikolaos Ploskas
Namur, Belgium Isabelle Linden

References

1. Alter, S.: A work system view of DSS in its fourth decade. Decis. Support Syst. 38(3), 319–327
(2004)
2. Arnott, D., Dodson, G.: Decision support systems failure. In: Burstein, F., Holsapple, C.W.
(eds.) Handbook on Decision Support Systems 1 Basic Themes, pp. 763–790. Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg (2008)
3. Eom, S.B.: Reference disciplines of decision support systems. In: Burstein, F., Holsapple, C.W.
(eds.) Handbook on Decision Support Systems 1 Basic Themes, pp. 141–159. Springer, Berlin,
Heidelberg (2008)
4. Prakken, B.: The (economic) evaluation of investments in information systems and in ICT.
In: Prakken, B. (ed.) Information, Organization and Information Systems Design, pp 197–222.
Springer, Berlin (2000)
Contents

1 Computerized Decision Support Case Study Research:

Concepts and Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Daniel J. Power
2 ArgMed: A Support System for Medical Decision Making
Based on the Analysis of Clinical Discussions . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Malik Al Qassas, Daniela Fogli, Massimiliano Giacomin,
and Giovanni Guida
3 The Integration of Decision Analysis Techniques
in High-Throughput Clinical Analyzers . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Anna Arigliano, Pierpaolo Caricato, Antonio Grieco,
and Emanuela Guerriero
4 Decision Support Systems for Energy Production
Optimization and Network Design in District
Heating Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Andrea Bettinelli, Angelo Gordini, Alessandra Laghi, Tiziano
Parriani, Matteo Pozzi, and Daniele Vigo
5 Birth and Evolution of a Decision Support System in the
Textile Manufacturing Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Pierpaolo Caricato, Doriana Gianfreda, and Antonio Grieco
6 A Decision Analytical Perspective on Public
Procurement Processes .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Mats Danielson, Love Ekenberg, Mattias Göthe,
and Aron Larsson
7 Evaluation Support System for Open Challenges on Earth
Observation Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
António J. Falcão, Rita A. Ribeiro, Javad Jassbi, Samantha
Lavender, Enguerran Boissier, and Fabrice Brito

xiii
xiv Contents

8 An Optimization Based Decision Support System for

Strategic Planning in Process Industries: The Case of a
Pharmaceutical Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Narain Gupta and Goutam Dutta
9 Decision Support in Water Resources Planning and
Management: The Nile Basin Decision Support System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Andreja Jonoski and Abdulkarim H. Seid
10 The AFM-ToolBox to Support Adaptive Forest
Management Under Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Manfred J. Lexer and Harald Vacik
11 SINGRAR—A Distributed Expert System for Emergency
Management: Context and Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Mário Simões-Marques
12 SINGRAR—A Distributed Expert System for Emergency
Management: Implementation and Validation .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Mário Simões-Marques
13 Crop Protection Online—Weeds: A Case Study for
Agricultural Decision Support Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Mette Sønderskov, Per Rydahl, Ole M. Bøjer, Jens Erik
Jensen, and Per Kudsk

Index . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Contributors

Malik Al Qassas University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

Anna Arigliano DII – Università del Salento, Via Monteroni, Lecce, Italy
Andrea Bettinelli OPTIT Srl, Viale Amendola, Imola, Italy
Enguerran Boissier Terradue UK Ltd, Old Jewry, London, UK
Ole M. Bøjer IPM Consult Ltd, Hovedgaden, Stenlille, Denmark
Fabrice Brito Terradue UK Ltd, Old Jewry, London, UK
Pierpaolo Caricato DII – Università del Salento, Via Monteroni, Lecce, Italy
Mats Danielson Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm
University, Kista, Sweden
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
Goutam Dutta Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India
Love Ekenberg International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg,
Austria
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, Kista,
Sweden
António J. Falcão UNINOVA, Campus FCT/UNL, Monte da Caparica, Portugal
Daniela Fogli University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy
Massimiliano Giacomin University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy
Doriana Gianfreda DII – Università del Salento, Via Monteroni, Lecce, Italy
Angelo Gordini OPTIT Srl, Viale Amendola, Imola, Italy
Mattias Göthe Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm Uni-
versity, Kista, Sweden
Antonio Grieco DII – Università del Salento, Via Monteroni, Lecce, Italy
xv
xvi Contributors

Emanuela Guerriero DII – Università del Salento, Via Monteroni, Lecce, Italy
Giovanni Guida University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy
Narain Gupta Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
Javad Jassbi UNINOVA, Campus FCT/UNL, Monte da Caparica, Portugal
Jens Erik Jensen SEGES P/S, Aarhus N, Denmark
Andreja Jonoski UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, DA Delft, The
Netherlands
Per Kudsk Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Forsøgsvej, Slagelse,
Denmark
Alessandra Laghi OPTIT Srl, Viale Amendola, Imola, Italy
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering “G. Marconi”,
Viale Risorgimento, Bologna, Italy
Aron Larsson Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm Uni-
versity, Kista, Sweden
Department of Information and Communications Systems, Mid Sweden University,
Sundsvall, Sweden
Samantha Lavender Pixalytics Ltd, Derriford, Plymouth, Devon, UK
Manfred J. Lexer University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna,
Austria
Tiziano Parriani OPTIT Srl, Viale Amendola, Imola, Italy
Daniel J. Power University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA
Matteo Pozzi OPTIT Srl, Viale Amendola, Imola, Italy
Rita A. Ribeiro UNINOVA, Campus FCT/UNL, Monte da Caparica, Portugal
Per Rydahl IPM Consult Ltd, Hovedgaden, Stenlille, Denmark
Abdulkarim H. Seid NBI Secretariat, Entebbe, Uganda
Mário Simões-Marques Centro de Investigação Naval (CINAV) – Portuguese
Navy, Alfeite, Almada, Portugal
Mette Sønderskov Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Forsøgsvej,
Slagelse, Denmark
Harald Vacik University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Daniele Vigo OPTIT Srl, Viale Amendola, Imola, Italy
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering “G. Marconi”,
Viale Risorgimento, Bologna, Italy
List of Reviewers

Guy Camilleri, IRIT, France

Csaba Csáki, University College Cork, Ireland
Pavlos Delias, Technological Institute of Kavala, Greece
Themistoklis Glavelis, University of Macedonia, Greece
Isabelle Linden, University of Namur, Belgium
Jason Papathanasiou, University of Macedonia, Greece
Nikolaos Ploskas, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Theodore Tarnanidis, University of Macedonia, Greece
Georgios Tsaples, University of Rome, Italy
Andy Wong, University of Strathclyde, UK
The editors of this book wish to acknowledge their gratitude for the prompt
and highly constructive reviews received from the researchers above in the various
phases of this book’s reviewing process.

xvii
About the Editors

Jason Papathanasiou is an assistant professor at the Department of Business

Administration, University of Macedonia, Greece. His PhD was in operational
research and informatics and he has worked for a number of years at various insti-
tutes. He has organized and participated in many international scientific conferences
and workshops. He has published more than 100 papers in international peer-
referred journals, conferences, and edited volumes and has participated in various
research projects in FP6, FP7, Interreg, and COST; he served also as a member
of the TDP Panel of COST and currently serves at the coordination board of the
EURO Working Group of Decision Support Systems. His research interests include
decision support systems, operational research, and multicriteria decision-making.

Nikolaos Ploskas is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Chemical

Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. His primary research interests are
in operations research, decision support systems, mathematical programming, linear
programming, and parallel programming. He has participated in several interna-
tional and national research projects. He is author of more than 50 publications
in high-impact journals, book chapters, and conferences. He has also served as
reviewer in many scientific journals. He was awarded with an honorary award from
HELORS (HELlenic Operations Research Society) for the best doctoral dissertation
in Operations Research (2014).

Isabelle Linden is a professor of information management at the University of

Namur in Belgium, Department of Business Administration. She obtained her
PhD in computer sciences from the University of Namur. She also holds masters
degrees in philosophy and in mathematics from the University of Liège, Belgium.
She is member of the CoordiNam Laboratory and the FoCuS Research Group.
Combining theoretical computer science and business administration, her main
research domain regards information, knowledge, and artificial intelligence. She
explores their integration within systems as EIS, DSS, and BI systems. Her works

xix
xx About the Editors

can be found in several international edited books, journals, books chapters, and
conferences. She serves as reviewer and program committee member in several
international journals, conferences, and workshops.
Chapter 1
Computerized Decision Support Case Study
Research: Concepts and Suggestions

Daniel J. Power

Abstract Supporting decision making is an important and potentially transforma-

tive research topic that is challenging for academic researchers to study. Anecdotal
evidence suggests that computerized decision support systems (DSS) can improve
decision quality and change the structure and functioning of organizations. To make
progress in our understanding of this phenomenon there is an ongoing need for
more decision support case study field research that includes documenting decision
support impacts. Research case studies help understand the use and consequences
associated with building and using computerized decision support. More descriptive
and technical information about specific DSS will be helpful in explaining the
variability of these technology artifacts. Current theory related to computerized
decision support is inadequate and research case studies can potentially assist in
theory building. The possibilities for improving and increasing decision support
continue to evolve rapidly and research case studies can help define this expanding,
changing field of study. More “good” case studies and more details about each
specific case is useful, helpful, and a significant contribution to understanding how
computing technologies can improve human decision making.

1.1 Introduction

A variety of tools and aids have been used by people to help make decisions
for thousands of years. For example, people have kept ledgers and records of
historical information, have used checklists and have built physical scale models.
Now managers use these tools and more sophisticated computerized tools for
decision support. Computerized decision support systems and analytics can serve
many new purposes and are and will be built using many differing technologies.
The domain of computerized decision support continues to get more diverse and
more sophisticated.

D.J. Power ()

University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0125, USA
e-mail: Daniel.Power@uni.edu

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

J. Papathanasiou et al. (eds.), Real-World Decision Support Systems,
Integrated Series in Information Systems 37,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43916-7_1
2 D.J. Power

Decision support capabilities should have a targeted user group and a purpose.
A decision support system is a technology artifact crafted from hardware and
software linked by networks and accessed by interface devices like smart phones
and personal computers. Documenting the expanding application domain is a major
reason to prepare research case studies. DSS builders must remember that providing
computerized decision support does not guarantee that better decisions will be made.
Understanding and documenting Decision Support Systems (DSS) can potentially
improve the design and usefulness of DSS. This chapter focuses on using case
study research to understand computerized decision support. This chapter reviews
the ongoing need for case study field research and documenting UML use cases
related to decision support. Section 1.2 reviews frameworks for classifying and
categorizing computerized DSS. Section 1.3 reviews the case study method in
general and then discusses applying the method to documenting a specific DSS
artifact or to examining a DSS in its context of application and use. Section 1.4
reviews classical DSS case studies. Section 1.5 addresses the usefulness of DSS case
studies. Section 1.6 summarizes major conclusions from this methodology overview
and some recommendations for using a case study to study computerized decision
support.

1.2 Understanding Decision Support Systems

At the website DSSResources.com, a decision support system (DSS) is defined

as “an interactive computer-based system or subsystem intended to help decision
makers use communications technologies, data, documents, knowledge and/or
models to identify and solve problems, complete decision process tasks, and make
decisions. Decision support system is a general term for any computer application
that enhances a person or group’s ability to make decisions. In general, decision
support systems are a class of computerized information systems that support
decision-making activities.”
Decision support is a broad concept that describes tools and capabilities to assist
individuals, groups, teams and organizations during decision making processes.
Computerized decision support systems built since the 1950s can be categorized in a
number of ways, cf. [24]. The four major taxonomies or frameworks in the literature
were proposed by Alter [1], Arnott and Pervan [2], Holsapple and Whinston [9], and
Power [20–22, 28]. There are commonalities among them and the schemes are not
contradictory. All of the frameworks attempt to organize observations and literature
about the variety of DSS that have been built and used over the years. This review
focuses on Power’s [20, 21] expanded DSS framework that builds upon Alter’s [1]
categories.
There are five DSS types in the expanded framework defined based upon
the dominant technology component. The initial DSS category in the expanded
framework is model-based or model-driven DSS. Many early DSS derived their
functionality from quantitative models and limited amounts of data. Scott-Morton’s
1 Computerized Decision Support Case Study Research: Concepts and Suggestions 3

[33] production planning management decision system was the first widely dis-
cussed model-driven DSS. Early case studies of other model-driven systems were
about MEDIAC [15], SPRINTER [40] and BRAND AID [14]. A model-driven
DSS emphasizes access to and manipulation of financial, optimization and/or
simulation models. Simple quantitative models provide the most elementary level
of functionality. Model-driven DSS generally use small to medium-sized data sets,
and parameters are often provided by decision makers. These systems aid decision
makers in analyzing a situation and evaluating sensitivity issues, but in general large,
gigabyte or terabyte data bases are not needed for model-driven DSS, cf. [21].
Alter [1] identified data-oriented DSS as fundamentally different than DSS
deriving functionality more from quantitative models than from data. Data sets were
growing, but analytical tools were limited. Bonczek, Holsapple and Whinston [4]
termed these systems retrieval-only DSS. Data-driven DSS emphasize access to and
manipulation of large data sets. Simple online file systems accessed by query and
retrieval tools provide the most elementary level of functionality. Data warehouse
and Business Intelligence systems that provide for the manipulation of data by
computerized tools provide additional functionality.
Beginning in the mid-1970s the developments in Artificial Intelligence led to
creating knowledge-driven DSS. These systems suggest or recommend actions.
Alter [1] termed them suggestion DSS and Klein and Methlie [13] used the term
knowledge-based DSS. These knowledge-driven DSS are person-computer systems
with specialized problem-solving expertise.
Two remaining categories in the expanded DSS framework [19, 21] are com-
munications-driven and document-driven DSS. Communications-driven DSS “use
network and communications technologies to facilitate decision-relevant collabo-
ration and communication. In these systems, communication technologies are the
dominant architectural component. Tools used include groupware, video confer-
encing and computer-based bulletin boards” [21]. A document-driven DSS “uses
computer storage and processing technologies to provide document retrieval and
analysis. Large document databases may include scanned documents, hypertext doc-
uments, images, sounds and video. Examples of documents that might be accessed
by a document-driven DSS are policies and procedures, product specifications,
catalogs, and corporate historical documents, including minutes of meetings and
correspondence. A search engine is a primary decision-aiding tool associated with a
document-driven DSS” [21]. Table 1.1 provides examples of the dimensions in the
expanded framework.
The expanded framework identifies the primary dimension for categorizing DSS
is the dominant architecture technology component or driver that provides decision
support. The three secondary dimensions are the targeted users, the specific purpose
of the system and the primary deployment or enabling technology. Five generic DSS
types are identified and defined based upon the dominant technology component.
This framework is the conceptualization used at DSSResources.COM to organize
what we have learned about decision support systems, cf. [19, 23]. Table 1.2
provides a general checklist for categorizing the five broad types of decision support
systems.
4 D.J. Power

Table 1.1 Expanded DSS framework [25]

Enabling
Dominant DSS Targeted users Purpose technology
DSS type component (examples) (examples) (examples)
Communications- Communications Internal teams Conduct a Bulletin board
driven DSS meeting
Supply chain Help users Videoconferencing
partners collaborate
Database Managers and staff, Query a data Relational
Data-driven DSS
now suppliers warehouse databases
Multidimensional
databases
Document-driven Document storage Specialists and user Search Web Search engines,
DSS and management group is expanding pages HTML
Knowledge-driven Knowledge base, Internal users, new Management Expert Systems
DSS AI customers advice
Quantitative Managers and staff, Scheduling Linear
Model-driven DSS
models new customers Programming,
Excel
Forecasting

Table 1.2 Check list for categorizing decision support systems

DSS check list
1. What is the dominant component of the architecture that provides functionality?
2. Who are the targeted users?
3. What is the purpose of the DSS?
4. What enabling technology is used to deploy the DSS?

1.3 Decision Support Case Studies

A case study is one type of qualitative research method. A case study researcher
often uses both observation and systematic investigation to gather data and then
the case write-up documents and summarizes what was found. Ideally a researcher
needs access to observe the decision support capability in use, access to documents,
and also access to ask questions of both developers and users.
Case studies help us understand computerized decision support. Both teaching
and research case studies serve a useful purpose in advancing the field. A good
teaching case can share challenges faced in design, implementation, and use. A
good research case study can generate hypotheses for further testing and document
“best practices” and use cases. Even short case study examples and vendor reported
case studies enrich our courses and help explain the breadth of the decision support
phenomenon.
In general, a research case study presents a systematic description, explanation
and analysis of a specific instance of a category or sub-category of objects or
1 Computerized Decision Support Case Study Research: Concepts and Suggestions 5

artifacts. Decision support artifacts are especially important to study. Software

systems can vary greatly, and each specific artifact we investigate informs our
understanding of what is possible, what has worked and been effective, and what
might work in a different context.
Schell [32] argues “As a form of research, the case study is unparalleled for its
ability to consider a single or complex research question within an environment
rich with contextual variables”. He defines three characteristics of an empirical or
research case study: (1) investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-
life context; (2) the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly
evident; and (3) multiple sources of evidence are used, cf. [44].
Wikipedia.com notes “A case study involves an up-close, in-depth, and detailed
examination of a subject (the case), as well as its related contextual conditions.” (cf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_study). In general, decision support case studies
should be “key” cases that are chosen because of the inherent interest of the case or
the circumstances surrounding it.
WhatIs.com defines a case study in a business context as “a report of an
organization’s implementation of something, such as a practice, a product, a system
or a service. The case study can be thought of as a real-world test of how the
implementation works, and how well it works” [42].
Case studies are a form of qualitative descriptive research. An ongoing concern
are the issues of validity, reliability, and generalizability, cf. [7]. In most situations
it is desirable to use several methods of data collection including observing
people using the system, structured feedback from users, review of technical
documentation, etc. Case studies based on multiple sources of information are often
perceived as more valid and reliable.
A Google search on the key words “decision support case study” in quotations
suggests the case study is a reasonably popular research method for this decision
support phenomenon. The actual search in November 2015 returned 2330 results.
Without using quotations around the phrase the search returned about 43 million
results. Cases studies were identified that reported systems serving many diverse
purposes including: clinical decision support (CDS), risk management, capacity
planning, flood forecasting, technology selection, veterinary decision support,
investments, land use planning, and scheduling to name a few of them.
Can we generalize from an individual case study or even 2330 case studies?
Generalization can result from examining specific case studies, but the credibility
of the generalization increases as more cases are examined. Decision support case
studies provide a description of a software artifact and its context of use, and an
implementation case study can identify what did not work and sometimes reasons
why failure occurred. A case study can also help identify design patterns and best
practices in terms of design methods, implementation processes, and deployment
and ongoing use of a decision support capability. Also, case studies of the same or
different systems at various stages in the software life cycle can help piece together
the longitudinal interaction of software systems and decision makers. So we may be
able to develop useful generalizations from case study findings.
6 D.J. Power

Decision support case studies are important because “good” ones provide
detailed information about how software/hardware systems are impacting decision
making in an actual organization. The decision support phenomenon becomes
more concrete and the rich context can be shared along with technical details and
observational notes.

1.4 Examples of DSS Case Studies

DSS case studies published in journals and books have contributed significantly
to our understanding. Websites like DSSResources.com and vendor websites also
include case examples. To document his framework, Alter [1] explained eight
major case examples, Connoisseur Foods, Great Eastern Bank OPM, Gotaas-
Larse Shipping Corporate Planning System, Equitable Life Computer-Assisted
Underwriting System, a media decision support system, Great Northern Bank
budgeting, planning and control system, Cost of Living Council DSS, and AAIMS,
an analytical information system.
A common motivation for adopting or building information systems and decision
support systems is that the organization will gain a competitive advantage. There is
some case study evidence to support that claim. For example, in a literature review,
Kettinger, Grover, Guha, and Segars [11] identified a number of companies that had
gained an advantage from information systems and some of those systems were
decision support systems. They identified nine case studies of DSS including:
1. Air Products—vehicle scheduling system
2. Cigna—health risk assessment system
3. DEC—expert system for computer configuration
4. First National Bank—asset management system
5. IBM—marketing management system
6. McGraw Hill—marketing system
7. Merrill Lynch—cash management accounts
8. Owens-Corning—materials selection system
9. Proctor & Gamble—customer response system
Power [21] explored the question of gaining competitive advantage from DSS
by reviewing examples of decision support systems that provided a competitive
advantage including systems at Frito-Lay, L.L. Bean, Lockheed-Georgia, Wal-Mart
and Mrs. Field’s Cookies. A major lesson learned from reviewing case studies is that
a company needs to continually invest in a Strategic DSS to maintain any advantage.
Power [26, 27] identified classic Decision Support Systems described in case
studies. A classic decision support system is an early and lasting example of using
technology to support decision making. Ten DSS related to business and organi-
zation decision-making are among the classics: AAIMS, Advanced Scout, CATD,
DELTA, Flagstar LIVE, GADS, GroupSystems, OPM, PMS and PROJECTOR.
1 Computerized Decision Support Case Study Research: Concepts and Suggestions 7

The classic DSS help document what was possible even though the purpose of the
systems may have been implemented using new technologies.
AAIMS, An Analytical Information Management System, was implemented by
American Airlines in the mid-1970s. It was developed in APL and was used for data
analysis. AAIMS included a database and functions for data retrieval, manipulation
and report generation. The database included sales, price and employee data. Klass
and Weiss developed the system internally at American Airlines. The system was
used for ad hoc reporting and to create a report of corporate performance indicators,
cf. [1, 12, 39].
Advanced Scout was developed by IBM and the software used data mining to
help National Basketball Association (NBA) coaches and league officials organize
and interpret data collected at every game. In the 1995–1996 season, 16 of 29 teams
used the DSS. A coach can quickly review countless statistics: shots attempted, shots
blocked, assists made, personal fouls. But Advanced Scout can also detect patterns
in these statistics that a coach may not have identified. Patterns found through data
mining are linked to the video of the game. This lets a coach look at just those video
clips that make up the interesting pattern, cf. [3].
CATD or Computer Aided Train Dispatching was developed by the Southern
Railway Co. from 1975 to 1982. It was initially built as a mini-computer based
simulator and was installed and tested on the North Alabama track system in January
1980. The system was placed in production for that system on September 15, 1980.
Gradually additional track systems were converted to CATD. The system provides
decision support to aid train dispatchers in centralized traffic control. The system
significantly reduced delays and reduced train meetings in the system, cf. [31].
DELTA, Diesel-Electric Locomotive Troubleshooting Aid, helped maintenance
personnel to identify and correct malfunctions in diesel electric locomotives by
applying diagnostic strategies for locomotive maintenance. The system can lead
the user through a repair procedure. It was a rule-based system developed in a
general-purpose representation language written in LISP. DELTA accesses its rules
through both forward and backward chaining and uses certainty factors to handle
uncertain rule premises. Although the system was prototyped in LISP, it was later
reimplemented in FORTH for installation on microprocessor-based systems. The
General Electric Company developed this system at their research and development
center in Schenectady, New York. Current status unknown, but it was field tested,
cf. [41].
Flagstar Bank, FSB (Nasdaq:FLGS) won the 1997 Computerworld Smithso-
nian Award for it’s use of information technology in the Finance, Insurance,
and Real Estate category. Flagstar Banks Lenders’ Interactive Video Exchange
(LIVE) merged Intel ProShare conferencing systems with automated underwriting
technologies to allow the home buyer and loan underwriter to meet face to face and
get loans approved quickly, regardless of where the loan originated. Usually this
process takes weeks and the prospective home owner has no contact with the person
who actually makes the decision, cf. [6].
GADS was an interactive system also known as Geodata Analysis and Display
System. The goal in developing GADS was to enable nonprogrammers to solve
8 D.J. Power

unstructured problems more effectively by applying their job-specific experience

and their own heuristics. It had a strong graphic display and “user-friendly”
characteristics that enabled non-computer users to access, display, and analyze data
that have geographic content and meaning. The system was used initially by police
officers to analyze data on “calls for service”. By 1982, 17 specific DSS had been
developed using GADS, cf. [37].
In early 1987, IBM combined efforts with the University of Arizona to implement
a group decision support system (GDSS) called GroupSystems. GroupSystems
was the result of a research and prototype development project by the MIS
department. GroupSystems utilized a set of flexible software tools within a local
area network to facilitate problem-solving techniques including brainstorming, idea
organization, alternative generation, and alternative selection. The GroupSystems
hardware, software and methodologies are combined in specially developed group
facilities called decision support centers (DSC). These rooms were 26 feet by 30
feet and contained 11 PCs connected by a LAN to a large screen projector. The PC
workstations were placed in a U-shape around the screen, cf. [16].
OPM, On-line Portfolio Management System, was described in a case study
written by Alter [1] based on research done by Ginzberg. “OPM had four purposes:
investment decision making, account reviews, administration and client relations,
and training (p. 29)”. OPM included 8 functions: directory, scan, groups, table,
histogram, scatter, summary and issue.
PMS, Portfolio Management System, was developed by T.P. Gerrity and it was
implemented in four banks beginning in 1974. The purpose of the DSS was to help
manage security portfolios and manage risk and return, cf. [10].
Finally, PROJECTOR was developed in 1970 by C.L. Meador and D.N. Ness
to support financial planning. The system included forecasting and optimization
models. It was used in 1974 by a New England manufacturing company to
investigate the acquisition of a new subsidiary, cf. [17].
Based upon available descriptions the classic DSS can be classified as follows:
AAIMS, OPM and PMS are data-driven DSS. GADS is a data-driven, spatial DSS.
CATD is a model-driven DSS. DELTA is a knowledge-driven DSS. GroupSystems
is a model-driven, group DSS.
At DSSResources.com, there are 54 case studies posted primarily between 2001
and 2007. There are examples of each of the five categories of decision support sys-
tems. The Decision Support Case Studies web page.is at URL http://dssresources.
com/cases/index.html. The page preface notes: This DSSResources.com page
indexes case examples of various types of computerized Decision Support Systems,
decision automation systems and special decision support studies that use computer-
ized analyses. Some of the cases are based upon field research, but many have been
provided by software vendors. We have tried to confirm and verify the information
in vendor supplied cases. The following examples from the case studies index are
grouped into the five categories in the expanded framework.
Data-driven DSS. The Databeacon East of England Observatory case is a web-
based system. The MySQL Cox Communications case describes an open source
data-driven DSS for real-time operational support and management control. Stevens
1 Computerized Decision Support Case Study Research: Concepts and Suggestions 9

describes implementing the Redland Genstar Data Mart. Power and Roth describe
Ertl’s Decision Support Journey. Power documents GE Real Estate’s Innovative
Data-driven Decision Support.
Model-driven DSS. Stottler Henke Associates described PADAL a DSS that
helps US Navy aircraft land aboard carriers. Procter & Gamble used @RISK and
PrecisionTree. TechComm Associates documented how estimating software yielded
higher profits at Liberty Brass. ProModel reported how MeritCare Health System
used simulation to optimize integration of service areas into a new day unit.
Knowledge-driven DSS. Biss wrote about how Dynasty Triage Advisor enabled
Medical Decision Support. Pontz and Power describe building an Expert Assistance
System for Examiners (EASE) at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and
Industry. EXSYS reported how IAP Systems is using Exsys CORVID expert system
software to support corporate families on overseas assignments.
Communications-driven DSS. eRoom staff documented how Naval Medicine
CIOs used a collaboration and knowledge-sharing decision support application.
Document-driven DSS. Documentum Staff explained how BFGoodrich (BFG)
Aerospace was improving Aircraft Maintenance Operations decision making using
a document-driven work flow system. Stellent Staff reported how University of
Alberta increased access to policies and procedures.
Some systems have multiple decision support subsystems. For example, Tully
explains E-Docs Asset GIS, a web-based spatial DSS with both data and document-
driven decision support.

1.5 How Useful Are DSS Case Studies

Decision Support Systems (DSS) encompass a broad array of software artifacts

intended to support decision making. The broad purpose is the same for all DSS, but
the narrower more specific uses and purposes vary. The targeted users of the systems
also differ. More fundamentally the architecture, technologies and source of primary
functionality can differ in significant ways. To better understand the wide range
of systems categorized broadly as Decision Support Systems researchers can and
should investigate exemplar systems and document them to demonstrate changes as
DSS are built using new technologies and to document innovation and best practices.
The specific DSS in a specific context is the “case” being studied and researchers
need to exercise care to insure their investigation does not bias the data collection
or the analysis. A researcher collecting data about the design, functioning and
effectiveness of a specific decision support system may and often is biased toward
the expanded use of computerized decision support. Yin [44] defines the case
study research method as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary
phenomenon within its real-life context (cf. p. 23). Prospective DSS case study
researchers should consult sources like Soy [36], who suggests steps for preparing
a case study for technology artifacts. He based his prescriptions on [35, 38, 44].
10 D.J. Power

According to Yin [44–46], case studies are appropriate when your research
addresses either a descriptive question like ‘What is happening or has happened?’
or an explanatory question like ‘How or why did something happen?’ Eisenhardt
[5] concludes theory-building case study methods are appropriate for new areas of
research as well as “research areas for which existing theory seems inadequate” (p.
549).
Some decision support case studies are longitudinal involving repeated observa-
tion and data collection over time while others involve a cross-sectional snapshot of
the system. Both approaches have advantage and can potentially provide differing
insights and different types of evidence. Selecting a specific DSS to study is most
often based upon opportunity, cooperation of the “owner” of the DSS, and interest
of the researcher or research team.
A systematic, research case study is in many ways the most useful research
method for understanding the what, how, why and how much benefit questions
important in an applied scientific field like computerized decision support. Report-
ing the implementation of a novel DSS is also useful, but some third party validation
is desirable.
More case studies of Decision Support Systems in use are needed to improve our
understanding and to document what is occurring. More longitudinal case studies
that report design, development, installation, use, and maintenance would also be
useful. Case studies provide rich, detailed information. DSS case study research is
not often theory driven, it is not hypothesis testing, and a single case study does not
result in generalizations, but it is useful. DSS case study research at its best leads to
informed descriptions and interpretive theory development. Peskin [18] notes good
description provides a foundation for all research. He also states “Interpretation not
only engenders new concepts but also elaborates existing ones (p. 24).”

1.6 Conclusions and Recommendations

The value of a decision support case study depends upon many factors. Only some of
them are controllable by the researchers. The following suggestions should increase
the value of a DSS research case study and help to expand our collective body of
decision support knowledge:
1. Try to identify novel DSS implementations where permission to publish the
findings is granted.
2. Identify installations/sites where you receive good cooperation from both users
and technical staff.
3. Be systematic in gathering information; think about what you want to know and
what has been reported in other DSS case studies.
4. Try to use the actual decision support system. If possible, do more than observe
its use.
1 Computerized Decision Support Case Study Research: Concepts and Suggestions 11

5. Identify multiple informants and information sources, including system docu-

mentation.
6. Take notes, lots of notes.
7. Follow up a site visit or online meeting/demonstration with emails to get more
details and to confirm what you heard and observed.
8. Say thank you often. Maintain positive relationships so you can get feedback
on the draft of the case study. Make sure managers recognize the value of
documenting the DSS, and of its development and use.
Yin [44] notes “The detective role offers some rich insights into case study
field research (p. 58).” Like a detective, the case study researcher must know the
purpose of the investigation, collect descriptive and factual data systematically,
interpret the data, summarize what was found, and draw reasonable conclusions.
Simon [34] briefly discussed the case study as an example of descriptive research.
He admonishes the case study researcher to “work objectively. Describe what is
really out in the world and what could be seen by another observer. Avoid filtering
what you see through the subjective lenses of your own personality (pp. 276–277).”
Case study research is a legitimate tool for expanding our understanding of
computerized decision support [8, 43]. No research methodology answers all of our
questions conclusively. Qualitative DSS case study research brings an information
systems researcher in direct contact with the technology artifact. The benefit to the
researcher from that direct contact is enhanced by spending the time and effort to
systematically collect data, organize and interpret the findings, and then share the
case study with other researchers. Decision support researchers need to study in
the field the decision support systems that they teach about, find interesting, and
perhaps wonder about. Decision support systems are varied, complex, changing and
consequential, some are more enduring than others. More research case studies and
more details about each specific case will be useful, helpful, and a contribution to
our understanding how computing and software can improve individual, group and
organization decision making.

Note

This chapter incorporates material from Ask Dan! columns written by D. Power that
have appeared in Decision Support News. Check [23, 29, 30] in the archive of Ask
Dan! columns at http://dssresources.com. Thanks to Professor Dale Cyphert and the
editors for suggestions.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
moved—the music of the hope of a sure reunion, that had surely come with
joy at last.

The sunlight faded from the near fells, and sorrow filled the air. A single
robin sang a note or two and was silent, and the leaves fell audibly to the
ground. But all who gazed out east saw the blue Howgills and the further
Pennine range shine out like burnished silver and gold, and thought of the
glory of that far land to which our friend had gone.

The procession went up the drive and into the lane, and so down into the
village, where every head seemed bowed and every home a house of
mourning. The service, simple throughout, included his favourite hymn:

'Lord, it belongs not to my care

Whether I live or die,'

and at the grave side a third hymn was sung which had been chosen by his
daughter as expressive of the continuity of happy life in the world beyond.
The bishop pronounced the benediction, the mourners placed their wreaths at
the grave side; silently the vast crowd melted away, and left to its long rest
the body of one of the most public-spirited servants of the common good
that Westmoreland has known. He will be as sorely missed as he will be
surely mourned.

A DAY WITH ROMAN AND NORSE.

It was burning June. The sun shone on lake and fell. Skiddaw was
cloudless and lifted into the clear heaven its purple lilac shade powdered
with the fresh fern and the emerald green of the bilberry. The corn-crake
cried in the valley, the throstle whistled from the larch plantation; in and out
of the elder-blossom the tireless bees went humming, and the haymakers
could hardly get on with their work for gazing at the exquisite beauty of the
wild roses on the hedge. In Cumberland, as Southey said, we miss the violet,
but we make up for our loss in April and May by the blush roses of the June.
They embroider the lanes, they dance upon the hedgerows, they flash against
the grey blue waters of the lake, they flutter against the green fellside. Such
roses! not faint in colour and scent as we see in the South, but red of heart
and filled with fragrance, wonderful wild roses of Cumberland.

What a day of life and loveliness it is! On the old Millbeck Hall door
stone up yonder are the words, 'Vivere mori, mori vivere,' but we feel that
the living, the living are the hearts that praise, and death is, even by
suggestion, out of place here.

To-day as we dash along under Skiddaw to see where Roman and

Norseman once had home, we feel that the same beauty was beheld by
earlier races, and the wild rose that gladdens our sight was very dear to eyes
of far-off generations, and has been a perpetual garden of life and loveliness
for all the passing years.

We are going to see the camps of the warriors of old, and we do well to
gather and put in hat and buttonhole the emblem of England's warrior saint,
the good St. George. As one thinks of the flower, one's mind does not only
go back to Pisanello and his picture of St. George away there in the church
of St. Anastasia in Verona, but to the hundred shrines wherein are seen that
fair Madonna, the Rose of God, whose painters honoured the wilding rose
for her sake, and gave it immortality on their canvases. To Roman Catholic
and to Protestant alike, how significant and full of tender association is the
wild dog-rose of Cumberland! How close it brings the church days of an
older time back to the present dwellers in this country, seeing that both on
Carlisle's city arms and Carlisle's bishop's coat of arms, the wild rose shines,
memorial of the monastery that honoured the Rose of Heaven.

But to-day we are going back to times that antedate those mediaeval
church days. We are on visit bent to Roman and Viking who dwelt in sight of
Skiddaw—the cleft one, in the days,

'When never a wild-rose men would braid

To honour St. George and the Virgin Maid.'

We dash on by Dancing Gate, a farm beyond Scalebeck, with its quaint holly
trees, whose sons have never forgotten the art of dancing, on by Mirehouse
with its memories of James Spedding and Thomas Carlyle and Alfred
Tennyson, on under Ullock slope, and by Ravenstone till we reach an old
farmhouse, quaint with its Jacobaean door-pilasters.

'For Orthwaite Hall and Overwater,' said the coachman, 'we should turn
off here to the right and go up the Rake,' as he slackened his paces.

There was an old Norse ring about that word 'rake,' for the Icelanders
still talk of their sheep 'rachan' just as our Cumberland shepherds do; when
the sheep follow one after another along the mountain side, they are
hereabouts said to be 'raking,' but though we were bent on a Norse chieftain's
home we refused to ascend the Rake. It was very hot and sultry, and we
preferred the shady woodland of Bassenthwaite 'parks,' and so drove
forward. We passed the Vicarage house and the Bassenthwaite Church,
crossed a small stream, and, turning sharply by a deserted chapel towards the
village, drove by the village green, thence entering a kind of meadow road,
were soon in shadow, and for more than a mile went, beneath bowery oak,
and fragrant larch, and gleaming hazel, along this copse-lane sweet with
wild woodruff and gay with lychnis, towards the hillside opposite the Dash,
where stands Orthwaite or Overthwaite Hall. It is worth while turning for a
backward gaze as we ascend the hill; Bassenthwaite and the fells that close
round far Derwentwater look nowhere more beautiful than from here.

That little tarn on our left is not Overwater, but it has its history; one
hundred sheep went on the ice one wintry day, broke through, and all were
drowned. The current superstition is that the pike in that tarn are as large as
donkeys; whether before or after the feast of plenty accorded by the
mountain sheep is not told.

Here is Orthwaite or Allerthwaite Hall grim and grey, its little

Elizabethan window mouldings, its diamond squares of glass, its quaint low-
ceilinged dining room. There is a look of drear sadness and of pale sorrow
about the quiet half-hall, half-farmstead, and there may well be, for its owner
William George Browne, the traveller, went forth therefrom to explore
Tartary and Bokhara in the year 1812, and being suspected by the Persian
government of sinister design, was, under instruction from headquarters,
taken captive beyond the Kizzil Ozan river, blindfolded and barbarously
murdered. Poor Browne! he had better have stayed in sight of harmless
Skiddaw, but his was the gipsy's mind, and though none knew quite why he
journeyed, and his journeys in Africa, Egypt, and Syria show that he
travelled more from love of wild roaming than for aught else, home for
William George Browne had no attraction in its sound. His was the restless
wanderer's heart.

Now we leave the carriage, and while it goes round to pick us up at

Whitefield Cottage on the Uldale and Ireby road, we descend into the
meadows and find ourselves gazing on a large square entrenchment, at the
angles of which were once raised mounds, lying to the south-west of
Overwater. No Roman camp this, for Romans did not place their camps in
the bottoms, unless they had a secure look-out above them, or a fortified
camp on a height near by; and Romans did not when they dug an
entrenchment round their camp, throw the earth out to right and left and
make an embankment either side their fosse, as it is plain was the case here;
besides there is but one entrance to the camp, and that was not the Roman
way. No, the camp we are looking upon was probably the kraal or stockaded
farmstead of a Norse chieftain, any time between 874 and 950 A.D.

Its owner probably came up the Derwent with Ketel, son of Orme, with
Sweyn and Honig or Hundhr, what time they harried Cumberland under
Ingolf or Thorolf the Dane. For aught we know, he may have been tempted
hither by some sudden surprise-peep he got of the Overwater tarn and
neighbouring meadowland, from the heights of Skiddaw, the first time he
clomb that double-fronted hill.

It is true that a Roman tripod kettle is said to have been discovered near,
but the Romans were not the only nation on the earth that worked in bronze,
and knew the advantage of putting legs to their kettles; and both in the
museum of Copenhagen and Christiania such tripod kettles may be seen to-
day that came from the hands of the Norsemen of old time.

As we gaze across the quiet meadow land to the north-east, we see the
high raised hill, where it is more than probable that the Viking chieftains,
who here had their steading, 'died into the ground,' as they expressed it,
when the death hour came. At any rate that hill is called Latrigg, which may
well mean the 'Hlad Rigg' or 'Ridge of the Dead,' and as at Keswick so here,
the Vikings may have carried up their dead chieftains for their last long rest
to yonder height. It is by some thought possible that the word Latrigg may
come from Norse words that signify the 'Lair Ridge,' the ridge of the lair of
wild beasts, and doubtless in those early days the farmer who built his
stockade had cause to dread other wild beasts than such as now trouble the
hen roosts beneath Skiddaw. Now on still nights the shepherd of
Underskiddaw may hear the fox of Skiddaw calling across the waters of
Bassenthwaite to the red-coated vixen at Barf, and hear her shrill bark
answer to his cry, but then the wolf howled and the wild boar prowled, and
there was need of stockade not only against man but against the creatures of
the wild woodland.

We leave the meadow with its Viking memories, walk on to join our
carriage at Whitefield Cottage, thence, driving along towards Uldale and
Ireby, see, far off, the common of Ulph the Norseman that was often waked
by John Peel's 'horn in the morning,' and, instead of descending into the
valley that separates us from that long moor that stretches to Caldbeck, we
turn sharply to the left, pass a lonely house of some pretension, and drive by
a narrow lane through hedges covered with wild-rose; away to the west,
upon surmounting the ridge, we suddenly come in sight of the littoral plain
—all peacock green and blue, the Solway flashing in the distance—and the
grey hills of bonnie Scotland beyond. We descend the hill and pull up at a
lodge gate. "Snittle Garth," says the driver. The very name has a
Scandinavian ring about it; we enter the Park and pull up at a pleasant-
looking country house.

By courtesy of the owner we pass in front of the garden, gay with its
flowers, and full of the sense and sweetness of an English country house. We
can hardly gaze at the camp we have come to see, so fair and beautiful is the
vision outstretched before us of Bassenthwaite laid in gleaming whiteness
beneath the dark hills of Wythop and the purple vastness of Skiddaw, so
exquisite the shadowy foldings of the blue hills that take the eye far up
beyond the gates of Borrodale to Gimmer Crag, to Great-End and far Sea-
fell. But when we look at the camp we have come to see we find ourselves
standing on a high plateau, sheltered on north and east and west by rising
ground. The site of the camp is rectangular, eighty-three feet by thirty-one;
isolated by a trench with regular scarp and counter-scarp. This trench is
twelve feet broad at the bottom, twenty feet at the top; the scarp and counter-
scarp are each nine feet, and the depth is five feet. The work, to all
appearance, is freshly done, and but for the fact that no pottery has been
revealed, might well be work of Roman engineers. As we wonder at the
quaint oblong island of green carved in the hill side, surrounded by its dry
moat, we listen to what the sages say and archaeologists guess about its
origin and intent.

'The remains of a mediaeval pleasaunce,' says one antiquarian.

'Not a bit of it,' says another, 'this was no sheet of water for ornament,
with an island in its midst, this was a Roman sanitary camp. Hither sick and
sorry came the poor fellows, whom the frosts of Cumberland had pinched, or
the dews of Cumberland had rheumatised, or the malaria of the Derwent
Vale had febrified, or the swords and clubs of the stubborn British had
wounded, and here girt round by friendly fence of water, sheltered from the
wind, uplifted in this quiet pastoral scene, they built their rough wattle
hospital, and prayed to the goddess of health.'

'No, no,' says a third antiquarian, no authority he, and therefore likeliest
to be right. 'This was a battle holme. Here in the olden time men met for
holm-gauge or wager of battle; on that oval sward was decided, in the sight
of the assembled multitude, the feud of families or the strife of tribes.'

We can, as we gaze, conjure up the whole scene, and hear the crash of
battle hammer, and see the flame of the circling brand; but the peace of the
present subdues the passion of the past, and the sound of the quiet grass-
cropping hard by of the unfearful sheep, the song of the thrush from the
neighbour sycamore recalls us to such pastoral tranquillity as ill assorts with
the stormy drama

'Of old far-off unhappy things

And battles long ago.'

Now rejoining our carriage let us drive west, up hill, to the neighbouring
Caermote. We shall feel all the time that the tribesmen, gathered at their
battle holme, can follow us with their eyes, and wonder what on earth can
possess us to leave them with their fierce axe play just going to begin, for the
old deserted look-out camp on the slope a mile away. We leave the carriage
to descend the hill to the south and await our arrival at the large square
double camp of the Romans on the lower slope, and not without many
pauses to wonder at fair scene of the seaward plain, we make our way up to
the northern peak of Caermote Hill.

This, with its circular rampart, was probably the 'mons exploratorius' of
the large double camp on the lower south-eastern slope, and a glorious look-
out the Roman legionaries must have had, if on such a day of June they came
with their wild roses in their hands to see the sun come with its wild rose
over Helvellyn, or move slowly to its setting and turn the whole grey Solway
into gold.

Down now we go southward across the pleasant green sward, negotiate

one or two rather awkward fences, and bearing a little to the left, towards the
main road that runs to Bewaldeth, we soon find ourselves in the midst of
ramparts of the quaint double Roman camp. It is a camp within a camp, the
larger of the two being about 180 yards by 160 yards square. There is
evidence that the cohort that first encamped here must have felt that it was a
place of much strategic importance, for they made the road from 'old
Carlisle' to Keswick run right through the middle of it. The continuation of
this road, though it remains untraced, probably ran along the east side of
Bassenthwaite up to the tiny Roman watch camp at the 'Gale,' and so by
Guardhouse towards Penrith, and to Causeway Foot, on the road to
Ambleside.

They appear also to have felt that they were in a dangerous country when
first they rested beneath Caermote, for they circled themselves with a triple
rampart and a double fosse.

But not for ever was there to be war at the gates, even in Roman times.
The cohort gave way to a 'century,' and the centurion, who remained to keep
the way from 'old Carlisle' to Keswick open, was content to trust his safety
from attack to the guardianship of a single ditch and rampart; and yet the
fierceness of fire and sword must in after times have been felt again at this
place. Not many years ago the ruins of some buildings near the north gate of
the large camp were discovered, that had once been roofed with lead, but the
buildings had been set on fire, and the lead had poured itself away into the
ground. There was nothing to suggest that these buildings had been of
Roman workmanship, and though it is possible that this was a kind of half-
way store-house for the lead miners of Caldbeck, who were sending their
mineral booty to the sea, it is quite as probable that at some time or other a
farmer had here his 'strength' or 'strong house,' and that 'rievers' from over
the Border had made short work of him, and given his farm-stead to the
flames.

We leave the Romans of Caermote, and are not surprised to think a

sanatorium hard by was necessary for the cohort of old time, if there was as
much water in the ground as there is to-day within and without the ramparts.
Thence we drive by way of Bewaldeth and the inn by the Bassenthwaite
cross-roads, to the shores of what Southey called 'westernmost Wythop.'
Hardly are we able to get forward, for the cries of those who are with us in
the carriage to draw up, that we may gaze at this or that wild-rose bush in all
its tender fluttering beauty. But at last we win our goal—Castle How Inn,
near Peelwyke; then scrambling up the hill we inspect the four trenches on
the side of the hill looking towards Peelwyke, whence of old time gazed out
the hardy Britons upon the Roman camp fires blazing at Caermote.

As we gaze we think not only of Roman times, but of the Viking times
also; for down below us lies the wyke or harbour where the first Norsemen
who ever came up Derwent from the sea ran their boats ashore.

Who, or whence the Norse ancestor of John Peel, who hewed the trees of
the woodland at our feet into planks and built his 'Pride of the lake,' we
cannot know, but he probably had friends, Ketel and Ormr, and Sweyn, and
Honig and Walla, who would from time to time come across the Crosthwaite
Vale and step aboard his galley, and sweep with flying sail or gleaming oar
along by the woods of Mirehouse or the shadowy cliffs of Barf to his
'steading' here at Bassenthwaite; and it is more than probable that he and his
family 'died into the ground' at Castle How, and there await the glory of the
gods and the coming of Odin.

We, as we gaze out south from the How of the Viking, can see plainly to-
day the burial ground of other Viking chieftains of the dale on the grey green
Latrigg's height; and sadly enough, we think, must they have passed into the
dark, if so fair a sun as this shone upon so fair a scene, and the roses and
elders were as sweet for them as they are for us to-day.

On now through fragrant briar wood and odorous larch to Keswick, and
the ghosts of Britain and Rome and Norway keep pace with our hearts as we
go.

ARCTIC SPLENDOURS AT THE ENGLISH LAKES.

The blizzard brought a greater gift of snow to the hills of the English
Lake District than had been remembered since 1859. The storm left behind it
a bewitching splendour, and Skiddaw and Helvellyn and Glaramara and
Grassmoor never shone more fair. Into clear air above the Yorkshire fells the
great sun rose. The heavens flushed above Helvellyn, and presently the
steep, angular cleft on Grisedale was filled with blue shadow. Then the light
splintered upon Causey Pike and Hindscarth, and Scafell shone like a jewel
of flame above the sea of deathly white. Five minutes later the blank white
snowfield of Derwentwater was changed into a gleaming floor of dazzling
light, and all the encircling hills seemed ivory washed with gold. A lilac veil
of haze rose from the Crosthwaite Valley and drifted up the snow slopes,
growing more gossamer-like as it touched the ridges of the hills, and soon
the mountains stood as clear as at the dawn against a cloudless sky.

Such blue of heaven touched the cones of Skiddaw as one sees on a clear
May morning above the Oberland peaks, and one wondered why it was that
people who have no chance of seeing Switzerland did not take the
opportunity of realising a Switzerland in miniature when it was close beside
their doors. One reads of excursions to the Palace of Varieties at Manchester
and Blackpool. How comes it about that no excursions are planned to such a
world of varieties, such ivory palaces of winter's garnishing and nature's
building, as, after heavy snowfall, may be found in Cumberland?
 The frost was still in the shade within 10 degrees of zero; on Chestnut
Hill it had been registered in the early morning as being within 4 degrees.
People as they went about the roads felt their feet almost ring upon the snow,
and children who tumbled into the powder rose and shook the fine dust from
their hair and laughed to find they were as dry as a bone. The rooks above
were silent and grave as they sat in solemn conclave on the ash tree at the
stable-end and waited for such happy chances as the cook or chicken-man
might give them. They were frozen out. Their tools were useless. But the tits
were merry enough—blue tit, great tit, and cole tit; how they clung and spun
and scooped at the cocoanuts and bones upon their Christmas tree! How the
thrush pecked at the suet; how the starling and blackbird gobbled at the
softened scraps upon the ground; and how the chaffinch and the robin
partook of the crumbs that fell from the rich bird's table, as those crumbs
came floating down from suet-lump or cocoanut above!

But we are off for a walk up to that old burial ground of the Viking
chieftains from the land of the Frost Giants, which we still call the Ridge of
Death—Latrigg of to-day. There, beside the path that leads from the main
road, is the golf ground, but golf has been dispossessed by a fitter game for
this season, and down the long slide shoot the tobogganers, and up the hill,
with glowing faces and in silver clouds of their own breath, the happy people
move. As one gazes into the valley another group of people in the
neighbouring hollow may be seen hard at work with brush and curling
stones, for the Keswick folk are some of them devotees to the rink, and the
noise of the curlers fills the air to-day.

We climb Latrigg, noting how the blizzard has swept some of the snow
from Skiddaw's western flank, and let the long yellow grasses and umber-
coloured heather once more give their beauty of pencilling to the otherwise
snow-white damask of their winter cloak. Thence, after far sight of the snow
upon the Scotch hills sacred to the name of Cuthbert and the memory of his
mission in Strathclyde, and near sight of the island hermitage, like a black
jewel in the snow-field of the lake, which keeps the memory of St.
Cuthbert's friend Herebert safe in mind, we descend to the vale.
 ARCTIC SPLENDOURS AT THE LAKES.

As we descend we have a friendly crack with a shepherd from the high

fells, whose dog has cleverly found and 'crowned' a handful of the Herdwick
sheep prisoned by a snowdrift against a wall. How did he do this? 'Naay, I
cannot tell tha, but I suppose t' dog nosed 'em, ye kna; dogs is wonderful
keen scented.' And had the sheep taken hurt? 'Naay, naay; they were safe and
warm as could be; they hedn't even begun to woo' yan anudder.' Wool one
another, what's that? 'Oh, sheep, poor things, when they git snowbound and
hev nowt to eat, teks to eatin' woo' off t' backs, to prevent pinin', ye kna.' So
saying, the shepherd goes off, to quest for more, up to the land of loneliness
and wintry wild, and I go down into the cheery vale.

How blue the snow is; you might have supposed the fields out 'Wythop'
way had been washed with ultramarine; but one's eyes are caught back by
the beauty of the snowdrifts by the roadside. These snowdrifts are for all the
world as if great waves of milk had curled over to breaking, and at the
moment had been fixed or changed into crystalline marble. And now the sun
is gathering its glory back into itself, and hangs a globe of flame above
'Whinlatter' Pass. Suddenly the light goes out from all the valley meadows.
The day star has sunk behind the hills. But still old Skiddaw flashes back the
flame, and shepherds, out Newlands way, can see the bastions of Blencathra
glow like molten gold.

For us, as we gaze out south, the range of Helvellyn is the miracle of
beauty that holds our eyes. Far off and ghostly for the haze, it lies upon a
background of rosy flushing afterglow, and seems to faint into a kind of
impalpable phantom of its former strength—becomes no longer solid
mountain, but spectral cloud. A light wind blows, and the oak leaves in the
hedge tinkle like iron; the farmer calls the horse to get his hay, the wren
chirrups or scolds from the wayside bank, and a partridge cries from the near
field. Then all is silent and hushed for the coming of the queen. Over the
dark pines upon Skiddaw, and above the silver shoulder of the hill, clear-
faced and full, the February moon swims up to rule the night. And such a
reign of splendour was then begun as I have no words to chronicle. For the
heaven above Helvellyn was rosy pink, melting into blue, and the sky above
Skiddaw was, or seemed to be, steel azure, and the west beyond the Wythop
range was gleaming amber. There, in the midst of that golden sea, shone
Venus like a point of silver fire. Sirius rose and scintillated above Helvellyn's
ridge, Jupiter looked clear from near the zenith, and Orion girt his starry
sword about him in mid-heaven; but it was the Moon who was the queen of
all our hearts. It was she who laid her mystery upon the lakes, the hills, the
valleys, white with snow; she who made one feel that if sunrise and
sunsetting had been fair to-day, the moon-rising in a land of Arctic splendour
had been fairer still.

WILLIAM PEARSON OF BORDERSIDE.

It is a pleasant thing for a Cumberland Crosthwaite man to have to speak

of a man of the Westmoreland Crosthwaite. It is a special pleasure when one
realises how Cumberland helped Westmoreland to give us the gentle mind
and life of enthusiasm for Truth and Nature which closed here at Borderside,
with 'unbroken trust in God,' and 'in hope of immortal life,' on the 16th
December, 1856.

I have read no life that seems to have been so genuinely the fruit of
enthusiasm for the poet Wordsworth as was the life of William Pearson. He
was ten years the junior of the poet, and survived him six years. We may
nevertheless look upon him as a contemporary. He was of the same kind of
North yeoman stock, and with greater opportunities might have made
himself a name in the annals of literature. As it is, like Elihu Robinson of
Egglesfield, like Wilkinson of Yanwath, like the late Wilson Robinson of
Winfell, Lorton, Pearson's name was not known far beyond his native valley,
but of him, as of the others named, it is truth to say that he was a living
monument of what 'the soul of Nature,' if it be received into the heart of
man, can do to elevate, to strengthen and refine. Of none other in his simple
estatesman rank that I have read of can it be more truly said, that from:

'... Nature and her overflowing soul

He had received so much, that all his thoughts
Were steeped in feeling.'

Wordsworth once wrote that 'Nature never did betray the heart that loved
her'; William Pearson proved by all he said and did that Wordsworth spoke
the truth. Wordsworth spoke felicitously of the

'Harvest of a quiet eye

That sleeps and broods on its own heart.'

William Pearson gathered that harvest to the full, ere he too, like a shock of
corn, was in a full time garnered. Wordsworth declared that

'Who feels contempt for any living thing

Hath faculties that he hath never used,'

and William Pearson put that assertion to good proof. Few men in his day
and station in this country went down to the grave with larger heart, of wider
sympathy and more love for all created things.
 William Pearson was born at the Yews in the Winster Vale on the 9th of
October, 1780. His father, who died at the age of 81 in the year 1840, was
long remembered as a quiet, studious farmer, who would ever read a book at
his meals, and made a practice of going afield at nights to gaze upon the
heavens. The stars in their courses helped him to reverence and to thought.
William's mother—a Little from the Borderland—survived her husband and
died at the age of 88 in 1842. While she span at her flax-wheel she used to
delight her little son William with folklore stories and fairy tales, but she
was chiefly remembered in the village for her bright activity and energy to
the last. Many a time, when she was between seventy and eighty years old,
on market day morning, though the horse stood saddled at the door, the old
lady would say, 'Nay, hang it, I'll never fash wid it,' and would set off on foot
to Kendal, with her butter basket containing twenty to thirty pounds of
butter, a distance of six miles and a half, and after 'standing the market' and
shopping, would walk home again with her purchases.

As a youngster, William's education was left to the wild beauty of his

native vale. If ever there was a boy of whom Nature might have said:

'Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me
The Boy, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain,'

it was the boy who went afield with his father as soon as he could toddle,
and who in Nature's kindly school got to know by heart and eye the hills and
scars of the neighbourhood, the tarns and moorlands, the trotting brooks, the
rivers running to the sea, the great estuary and marsh, with all their bird and
beast and flower life. He never forgot his first sight of Windermere and
Morecambe Bay, nor his first journey up Troutbeck over the Kirkstone Pass;
and no sooner had he left home for work elsewhere than he felt that there
was only one place on this earth where life was worth living and that was the
Winster Vale.

It is true that he went to the Crosthwaite school and proved himself early
to be a master of figures. The author who fascinated him then was Defoe.
The Memoirs of a Cavalier and Robinson Crusoe were his teachers. From
Crosthwaite school he went to Underbarrow and distinguished himself there
chiefly for having the pluck to stand up to the big bully and thrash him in
defence of the oppressed youngster. He became out of school times an expert
and ardent follower of Isaac Walton. Years after, he wrote an appreciative
paper which is extant on Walton and Cotton's Complete Angler, which he
begins with the sentence, 'Among our most favourite books is The Complete
Angler of Isaac Walton.' The boys of Underbarrow noticed that he hugged
his garret where the owls built, and was often deep in old romances of
Amadis de Gaul and Roncesvalles when others were out and away up the
fells. But in the holidays he followed bark-peeling, not so much as that thus
he might earn something that would pay for his schooling, as because in the
months of May and June when the bark-peelers went to their fragrant task in
the woods, there was a fine chance of becoming acquainted with the life-
history of many of our feathered visitors that were nesting at that time. In
autumn his delight was to be after the woodcocks, and great was his joy,

'With store of springes o'er his shoulder hung,

To range the open heights where woodcocks run
Along the smooth green turf. Through half the night,
Scudding away from snare to snare, he plied
That anxious visitation.'

In his copy of Wordsworth's Prelude, the marker, at his death, was found
placed at this passage, and he never tired of telling the story of his woodcock
adventures.

His first work in life was to act as teacher in the Winster village school;
he went thence to be tutor to the four children of a widow body at Cartmel
Fell, but at the end of the year gave up teaching to take the place of a
grocer's assistant at Kendal.

He was only there a year, but it was an eventful one in William Pearson's
life. He made the acquaintance of Benjamin Gough, the blind botanist, and it
is possible that he was led by him into enquiry not only into the wonders of
plant life, but of the life of that most delicate of all plants, the religious faith
of the human soul. It is certain that during this year William Pearson's chief
study was the study of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Church Doctrine, and
the end of it was that he reasoned and read himself out of Episcopalianism
into Unitarianism, as his father had in the past done before him. He found
rest to his young soul in the thought of the great Fatherhood of God, and
worshipped in the old Presbyterian Meeting House, where sometimes in
after years Wordsworth also worshipped, and near by which lie the ashes of
the James Patrick of Kendal, who was the original of the Wanderer in The
Prelude. It may be fancy, but I like to think that it was in that chapel that the
young lad first saw the man whose writings did more for him all through life
than any other—I mean William Wordsworth.

From Kendal, William went, as was the wont of many a Kendal

apprentice, to a grocer's shop in London, and at the end of three months he
returned to the Winster Vale, broken in health from the stifle of London air,
and the fact that he had no better resting place after long days of work in a
city store than a shake-down underneath the counter. He was now in his
twenty-third year. The 'poddish' and fresh air of the Yews set him 'agate'
again, and he determined to try Manchester life, and on the 16th March,
1803, he set out for that metropolis of the North. He obtained a situation on
the next day after his arrival as clerk in the bank of James Fox & Company,
in King Street, and for the next seventeen years he endured

'The fierce confederate storm

Of sorrow barricadoed evermore
Within the walls of cities.'

How simple and frugal his life was there, we may gather from the fact
that out of his first year's stipend of £75 he sent back a deposit to one of the
Kendal banks. He was not very happy. He wanted friends of his age 'who
united,' as he tells us, 'those first of blessings, virtue and knowledge,' and
they were not. 'Indeed, sir,' he writes to James Watson of Kendal, 'I think
Manchester, in proportion to its population, very deficient in men of
cultivated understanding. Immersed in business, or carried down the stream
of dissipation, slaves to "Mammon" and to "Bacchus," they have seldom
time for the rational amusement of reading or for the calm pleasure of
reflection.'

This seems somewhat priggish, but it was the real and earnest William
Pearson who spoke. Sociable as he was, fond of seeing a good play, his chief
delight, if he was not out in the fields, was a book that would set him
thinking or a poem that would touch his imagination, and Pearson was old
beyond his years. He joined the Didactical Society, the Mosley Street
Library, subscribed to the News Room and made one or two friends for life.

There in most uncongenial surroundings for seventeen years he stuck to

'the drudgery at the desk's dead wood' with one thought, that a time would
arrive when he could come back to his native vale, and live a student's and a
naturalist's life in simple competence. As a matter of fact his health broke
down after five years of Manchester smoke, and he had to come back in
1808 to the Yews in his native vale for country air and restoration.

He was at this time nothing if not a keen sportsman, and he was, if one
may judge from a letter he sent at this time to a Kendal paper, vexed at heart
by the vigorous application of the game laws as enforced by the worthies of
the local bench. Three young men, who, with nothing but a knob-stick, could
run down a hare, had been caught hunting on Cartmel Fell. 'We must pity the
Robinsons,' he says, 'young men who can run down a hare, an animal that
often escapes the fleetest greyhound, who pursued their sport without fear in
the open day, and so generously, that they left a hare with the farmer on
whose ground they happened to take it. These fine young men have been
made to pay £3 13s. 6d. for their sport. The age of chivalry is indeed gone.
The ancient Greeks would have crowned them with laurel, but this is the age
of taxation and little men. We are fallen on evil days; we only wish the
surveyor and commissioner had heard them at their joyous sport, and had
heard their shouts, as we did, which made the old mountains ring again even
to Gummershow, to be echoed back from the far-off Coniston Fells.'

It was during his Manchester residence that he became a student of

William Wordsworth. It was not fashionable then to care for Wordsworth's
poetry, but William Pearson was never without the Lyrical Ballads of 1805,
or his copy of Poems by William Wordsworth, of 1807. The young bank
clerk, who was often heard muttering, 'I will lift mine eyes unto the hills,
whence cometh aid,' felt in these poems 'all the beauty of a common dawn.'
He knew that Wordsworth walked on the shining uplands of a noble
aspiration, and was the apostle, in a time 'that touched monied worldlings
with dismay,' of the simpler life of honest poverty and high endeavour. He
felt that in Wordsworth he could find that sympathy with all things, that

'Look to the Uncreated with a countenance

Of admiration and an eye of love.'

He knew that Wordsworth had realised the power of Nature to chasten and
subdue

'and intertwine
The passions that build up our human soul
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man
But with high objects and enduring things.'

He also knew how Wordsworth taught men the secret of the gentle heart,

'Never to blend its pleasure or its pride,

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.'

It was this knowledge that soon made him love rather to watch a wild
bird than shoot it. One is not surprised therefore to find him constantly
referring to Wordsworth's writings, and yet to feel him so eminent as a man
that years after, though communing in spirit with him day by day, he could
not summon courage to go up the path to Rydal Mount, and abashed at his
own boldness for venturing to call, came away from the door of the Rydal
poet, without seeing his hero, like a thing ashamed.

It was owing to mutual love and admiration for Wordsworth's poetry that
he found in a poor Gorton silk-weaver, Thomas Smith by name, so congenial
a companion. The last six years of Pearson's life at Manchester can chiefly
be known from the letters that passed between these two friends, which
towards the end seem almost to degenerate into a series of begging letters
from a poor weaver out of work and 'thrice dispirited.' But this at any rate is
seen in their correspondence, that even in abject poverty high thinking is
possible, and Wordsworth's poems seem to be medicine for the mind; while
on the other hand there is always the ready and generous response of the
yeoman of Winster Vale, and such delicacy in act of gift as makes one feel
how finely strung, how nobly sensitive was the mind of the benefactor.

Pearson sends Thomas Smith a copy of The Excursion. 'Your tidings

about Wordsworth,' says the poor weaver, under date of April 15, 1821, 'I
will not call him Mr., he is too great for that, were good tidings indeed; his
Excursion I have been longing for ever since it was first published, but the
price has been an unsurmountable obstacle to a weaver.'

The two friends unbosom their hearts to one another in these letters, and
there is seen something of the deep religious side of Pearson's character in
some of them. 'I cannot,' he writes to Smith in 1831, 'conclude without a
word about what you write of your being unhappy. Read your Bible. Trust in
that Good Being who gave you your existence. Consider the many in your
situation who from ignorance and want of education have not the arguments
of hope that you have; ... only the wicked need be unhappy; at anyrate do not
despair.' And again in 1838, 'I wish I could console you under your troubles.
Be thankful you have not a guilty conscience—the greatest of evils. Read
your Bible, read Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Milton. Do you go to
worship, public, I mean? You have a chapel at the foot of your hill, join
yourself to them.'

When Smith lay dying, Pearson wrote a letter full of tender sympathy.
'So long as reason and memory remain, I shall never forget the many
delightful hours we have passed together, whether in reading some favourite
poet or rambling among the beautiful scenes of Nature.' 'I believe,' he added,
'that seldom have two persons come together more in sympathy than we two,
and I have often felt that my separation from you was one of my greatest
losses in leaving your part of the country.'

Those rambles he mentions were walking-tours he took in 1817 through

Derbyshire, and in 1818 in the Craven country of Yorkshire. He kept
journals, and full of delightful observation of men and things they are,
redolent of real joy in sunshine and cloud. He writes, 'We walked forward on
this delightful morning with vigorous steps. The lark was our constant
companion, cheering us overhead with her song, the fresh air of the
mountains bathed our cheeks, there was freedom from care and the feeling
of liberty

'When the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Hung not upon the beatings of our hearts.'

'We felt something,' he adds, 'of

"That blessed mood

In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened: that serene and blessed mood
In which the affections gently lead us on."

At the end of his Derbyshire journal he says that 'the remembrance of

those happy days in Derbyshire will lie in the landscape of his memory, like
spots of stationary sunshine; they will be to him and his friend as wells of
pure water amid desert sands to which their souls may fly for refreshment
hereafter in hours of weariness amid the din of towns and cities and the
many shapes of joyless delight.'

Did ever city man take back to city roar and barrenness more quiet and
more profit from a country ramble?

In his last letter to Thomas Smith, he spoke of having left the Manchester
neighbourhood. In the autumn of 1820 he gave up his work in the
Manchester Bank. He never could think of his native vale without a sense of
heartsickness; his work was irksome and city life hateful. In his poem to the
river Winster dated 1821, he writes:

'And in the heavy time of after life,

When buried in the midst of toil and strife
In trading towns, if intermission sweet
I sought from my dull toil, my fancy fleet
Was straight amid thy vernal meads and flowers,