Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

Transcriber's notes:

(1) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.

(2) The following typographical error has been corrected:

Article ENGLISH FINANCE: "Almost at the opening of the age of
parliamentary taxation one of the older sources of revenue ceased.
The pressure of popular opinion forced Edward I. to decree the
expulsion of the Jews (1290), though he naturally desired to retain
such profitable subjects." 'opinion' amended from 'opinon'.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME IX, SLICE IV

England to English Finance

ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:

ENGLAND ENGLEWOOD
ENGLAND, THE CHURCH OF ENGLISH CHANNEL
ENGLEFIELD, SIR FRANCIS ENGLISH FINANCE
ENGLEHEART, GEORGE

ENGLAND. Geographical usage confines to the southern part of the island of Great Britain the name commonly given to the great insular power of western Europe.[1] In this restricted sense the present article deals with England, the predominant partner in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, both as containing the seat of government and in respect of extent, population and wealth.

1. TOPOGRAPHY.

England extends from the mouth of the Tweed in 55 deg. 46' N. to Lizard Point in 49 deg. 57' 30" N., in a roughly triangular form. The base of the triangle runs from the South Foreland to Land's End W. by S., a distance of 316 m. in a straight line, but 545 m. following the larger curves of the coast. The east coast runs N.N.W. from the South Foreland to Berwick, a distance of 348 m., or, following the coast, 640 m. The west coast runs N.N.E. from Land's End to the head of Solway Firth, a distance of 354 m., or following the much-indented coast, 1225 m. The total length of the coast-line may be put down as 2350 m.,[2] out of which 515 m. belong to the western principality of Wales.[3] The most easterly point is at Lowestoft, 1 deg. 46' E., the most westerly is Land's End, in 5 deg. 43' W. The coasts are nowhere washed directly by the ocean, except in the extreme south-west; the south coast faces the English Channel, which is bounded on the southern side by the coast of France, the two shores converging from 100 m. apart at the Lizard to 21 at Dover. The east coast faces the shallow North Sea, which widens from the point where it joins the Channel to 375 m. off the mouth of the Tweed, the opposite shores being occupied in succession by France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark. The west coast faces the Irish Sea, with a width varying from 45 to 130 m.

+---------------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Area | |
| Counties. | Statute | Population. |
| | Acres. | 1901. |
+---------------------+-------------+-------------+
| Bedfordshire | 298,494 | 171,240 |
| Berkshire | 462,208 | 256,509 |
| Buckinghamshire | 475,682 | 195,764 |
| Cambridgeshire | 549,723 | 190,682 |
| Cheshire | 657,783 | 815,099 |
| Cornwall | 868,220 | 322,334 |
| Cumberland | 973,086 | 266,933 |
| Derbyshire | 658,885 | 620,322 |
| Devonshire | 1,667,154 | 661,314 |
| Dorsetshire | 632,270 | 202,936 |
| Durham | 649,352 | 1,187,361 |
| Essex | 986,975 | 1,085,771 |
| Gloucestershire | 795,709 | 634,729 |
| Hampshire | 1,039,031 | 797,634 |
| Herefordshire | 537,363 | 114,380 |
| Hertfordshire | 406,157 | 250,152 |
| Huntingdonshire | 234,218 | 57,771 |
| Kent | 995,014 | 1,348,841 |
| Lancashire | 1,203,365 | 4,406,409 |
| Leicestershire | 527,123 | 434,019 |
| Lincolnshire | 1,693,550 | 498,847 |
| Middlesex | 181,320 | 3,585,323 |
| Monmouthshire | 341,688 | 292,317 |
| Norfolk | 1,308,439 | 460,120 |
| Northamptonshire | 641,992 | 338,088 |
| Northumberland | 1,291,530 | 603,498 |
| Nottinghamshire | 539,756 | 514,578 |
| Oxfordshire | 483,626 | 181,120 |
| Rutland | 97,273 | 19,709 |
| Shropshire | 859,516 | 239,324 |
| Somersetshire | 1,043,409 | 508,256 |
| Staffordshire | 749,602 | 1,234,506 |
| Suffolk | 952,710 | 384,293 |
| Surrey | 485,122 | 2,012,744 |
| Sussex | 933,887 | 605,202 |
| Warwickshire | 577,462 | 897,835 |
| Westmorland | 503,160 | 64,303 |
| Wiltshire | 879,943 | 273,869 |
| Worcestershire | 480,560 | 488,338 |
| Yorkshire | 3,882,328 | 3,584,762 |
+---------------------+-------------+-------------+
| Total | 32,544,685 | 30,807,232 |
+---------------------+-------------+-------------+

The area of England and Wales is 37,327,479 acres or 58,324 sq. m. (England, 50,851 sq. m.), and the population on this area in 1901 was 32,527,843 (England, 30,807,232). The principal territorial divisions of England, as of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, are the counties, of which England comprises 40. Their boundaries are not as a rule determined by the physical features of the land; but localities are habitually defined by the use of their names. A list of the English counties (excluding Wales) is given in the table above.[4]

_Hills._--As an introduction to the discussion of the natural regions into which England is divided (Section II.), and for the sake of comparison of altitudes, size of rivers and similar details, deg.the salient geographical features may be briefly summarized. The short land-frontier of England with Scotland (its length is only 100 m.) is in great measure a physical boundary, as considerable lengths of it are formed on the east side by the river Tweed, and on the west by Kershope Burn, Liddel Water, and the river Sark; while for the rest it follows pretty closely the summit of the Cheviot Hills, whose highest point is the Cheviot (2676 ft.). A narrow but well-marked pass or depression, known as the Tyne Gap, is taken to separate the Cheviot system from the Pennine Chain, which is properly to be described as a wide tract of hill-country, extending through two degrees of latitude, on an axis from N. by W. to S. by E. The highest point is Cross Fell (2930 ft.). On the north-west side of the Pennine system, marked off from it by the upper valleys of the rivers Eden and Lune, lies the circular hill-tract whose narrow valleys, radiating from its centre somewhat like wheel-spokes, contain the beautiful lakes which give it the celebrated name of the Lake District. In this tract is found the highest land in England, Scafell Pike reaching 3210 ft. East of the Pennines, isolated on three sides by lowlands and on the fourth side by the North Sea, lie the highmoors of the North Riding of Yorkshire, with the Cleveland Hills, and, to the south, the Yorkshire Wolds of the East Riding. Neither of these systems has any great elevation; the moors, towards their north-western edge, reaching an extreme of 1489 ft. in Urra Moor. The tableland called the Peak of Derbyshire, in the south of the Pennine system, is 2088 ft. in extreme height, but south of this system an elevation of 2000 ft. is not found anywhere in England save at a few points on the south Welsh border and in Dartmoor, in the south-west. Wales, on the other hand, projecting into the western sea between Liverpool Bay and the estuary of the Dee on the north, and the Bristol Channel on the south, is practically all mountainous, and has in Snowdon, in the north-west, a higher summit than any in England--3560 ft. But the midlands, the west, and the south of England, in spite of an absence of great elevation, contain no plains of such extent as might make for monotony. The land, generally undulating, is further diversified with hills arranged in groups or ranges, a common characteristic of which is a bold face on the one hand and a long gentle slope, with narrow valleys deeply penetrating, on the other. Southward from the Pennines there may be mentioned, in the midlands, the small elevated tract of Charnwood Forest (Bardon Hill, 912 ft.) in Leicestershire, and Cannock Chase (775 ft.) and the Clent Hills (928 ft.), respectively north and south of the great manufacturing district of Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Of the western counties, the southern half of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire are generally hilly. Among the Shropshire Hills may be mentioned the isolated Wrekin (1335 ft.), Long Mynd (1674 ft.) and the Clee Hills (Brown Clee, 1805 ft.). The long ridge of the Black Mountain reaches an extreme height of 2310 ft. on the Welsh border of Herefordshire. The Malvern Hills on the other side of the county, which, owing to their almost isolated position among lowlands, appear a far more prominent feature, reach only 1395 ft. In western Monmouthshire, again belonging to the south Welsh system, there are such heights as Sugar Loaf (1955 ft.) and Coity (1905 ft.).

In the south midlands of England there are two main ranges of hills, with axes roughly parallel. The western range is the Cotteswold Hills of Gloucestershire and the counties adjacent on the east running S.W. and N.E. Its highest point is Cleeve Cloud (1134 ft.). The uplands of Northamptonshire continue this range north-eastward, decreasing in elevation. The eastern range, beginning in Wiltshire, runs E.N.E. as the White Horse Hills (856 ft. at the highest point), and after the interruption caused by the gap or narrow valley by which the river Thames penetrates the hills near Goring, continues N.E. as the Chiltern Hills (850 ft.). The East Anglian ridge continues the line E.N.E., gradually decreasing in altitude. In the south-east of England, the North and South Downs are both well-defined ranges, but are characterized by a number of breaches through which rivers penetrate, on the one hand to the Thames or the North Sea and on the other to the English Channel. Leith Hill in the North Downs reaches 965 ft., and Butser Hill in the South Downs 889 ft.; Blackdown and Hindhead, two almost isolated masses of high ground lying between the two ranges of the Downs towards their western extremity, are respectively 918 and 895 ft. in height. In the north of Hampshire along its boundary with Surrey and Berkshire, in the southern half of Wiltshire (where rises the upland of Salisbury Plain), in Dorsetshire, and the south of Somersetshire, the hills may be said to run in a series of connected groups. They cannot be defined as a single range, nor are they named, as a rule, according to the groups into which they fall, but the general title of the Western Downs is applied to them. One point only in all these groups exceeds 1000 ft. in altitude, namely, Inkpen Beacon (1011 ft.) in the extreme south-west of Berkshire, but heights above 900 ft. are not infrequent. In the northern part of Somersetshire, two ranges, short but well defined, lie respectively east and west of a low plain which slopes to the Bristol Channel. These are the Mendips (Black Down, 1068 ft.) and the Quantocks (Will's Neck, 1261 ft.). The Blackdown Hills, in south-western Somersetshire and eastern Devonshire, reach 1035 ft. in Staple Hill in the first-named county. In western Somersetshire and north Devonshire the elevated mass of Exmoor reaches 1707 ft. in Dunkery Beacon; and in south Devonshire the highest land in southern England is found in the similar mass of Dartmoor (High Willhays, 2039 ft.). The westward prolongation of the great south-western promontory of England, occupied by the county of Cornwall, continues as a rugged ridge broken by a succession of depressions, and exceeds a height of 800 ft., nearly as far as the point where it falls to the ocean in the cliffs of Land's End.

_Lowlands._--The localities of the more extensive lowlands of England may now be indicated in their relation to the principal hill-systems, and in this connexion the names of some of the more important rivers will occur. In the extreme north-west is the so-called Solway Plain, of no great extent, but clearly defined between the northern foothills of the Lake District and the shore of Solway Firth. In Lancashire a flat coastal strip occurs between the western front of the Pennine Chain and the Irish Sea, and, widening southward, extends into Cheshire and comprises the lower valleys of the Mersey and the Dee. In the preceding review of the English hill-systems it may have been observed that eastern England hardly enters into consideration. The reason now becomes clear. From Yorkshire to the flat indented sea-coast north of the Thames estuary, east of the Pennines and the slight hills indicated as the Northampton uplands, and in part demarcated southward by the East Anglian ridge in Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, the land, although divided between a succession of river-systems, varies so little in level as to be capable of consideration as a single plain. Its character, however, varies in different parts. The Fens, the flat open levels in the lower basins of the Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse, only kept from their former marshy conditions by an extensive system of artificial drainage, and the similar levels round the head of the Humber estuary, differ completely in appearance from the higher and firmer parts of the plain. The coast-land north of the mouth of the Thames is a low plain; and on the south coast somewhat similar tracts are found in Romney Marsh, and about the shallow inlets (Portsmouth Harbour and others) which open from Spithead. The vales of Kent and Sussex are rich undulating lowlands within the area of the Weald, separated by the Forest Ridges, and enclosed by the North and South Downs. In the south-west there is a fairly extensive lowland in south Devonshire watered by the Exe in its lower course. But the most remarkable plain is that in Somersetshire, enclosed by the Mendips, the Western Downs, Blackdown Hills and the Quantocks and entered by the Parrett and other streams. The midlands, owing to the comparatively slight elevation of the land, are capable of geographical consideration as a plain. But it is not a plain in the sense of that of East Anglia. There is no quite level tract of great extent, excepting perhaps the fertile and beautiful district watered by the lower Severn and its tributary the Upper or Warwickshire Avon, overlooked by the Cotteswolds on the one hand and the Malvern and other hills on the other.

_Coast._--The coast-line of England is deeply indented by a succession of large inlets, particularly on the east and west. Thus, from north to south there are, on the east coast, the mouths of the Tyne and the Tees, the Humber estuary, the Wash (which receives the waters of the Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse), the Orwell-Stour, Blackwater and Thames-Medway estuaries. On the west there are Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay, the estuaries of the Mersey and Dee, Cardigan Bay of the Welsh coast, and the Bristol Channel and Severn estuary. In this way the land is so deeply penetrated by the water that no part is more than 75 m. from the sea. Thus Buckingham appears to be the most inland town in England, being 75 m. from the estuaries of the Severn, Thames and Wash; Coleshill, near Birmingham, is also almost exactly 75 m. from the Mersey, Severn and Wash.

The east and south coasts show considerable stretches of uniform uninflected coast-line, and except for the Farne Islands and Holy Island in the extreme north, the flat islands formed by ramifications of the estuaries on the Essex and north Kent coasts, and the Isle of Wight in the south, they are without islands. The west coast, on the other hand, including both shores of the great south-western promontory, is minutely fretted into capes and bays, headlands and inlets of every size, and an island-group lies off each of the more prominent headlands from Land's End northward. The formation of the coast varies from low, shifting banks of shingle or sand to majestic cliffs, and its character in different localities has been foreshadowed in the previous consideration of the hill-systems and lowlands. Thus in the north-east the coast is generally of no great elevation, but the foothills of the Cheviot and Pennine systems approach it closely. On the Yorkshire coast the Cleveland Hills and the high moors are cut off on the seaward side in magnificent cliffs, which reach the greatest elevation of sea-cliffs on the English coast (666 ft.). The Yorkshire Wolds similarly terminate seaward in the noble promontory of Flamborough Head. From this point as far south as the North Foreland of Kent the coast, like the land, is almost wholly low, though there are slight cliffs at some points, as along the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, on which the sea constantly encroaches. On the south coast a succession of cliffs and low shores may be correlated with the main physical features of the land. Thus in succession there are the famous white cliffs about Dover, terminating the North Downs, the low coast of Romney Marsh, projecting seaward in Dungeness, the cliffs above Hastings, terminating an offshoot of the Forest Ridges, the low shore between Hastings and Eastbourne, to which succeeds the lofty Beachy Head, terminating the South Downs. A flat coast follows as far as Selsey Bill and Spithead, but the south coast of the Isle of Wight shows a succession of splendid cliffs. The shallow inlet of Poole Bay is followed by the eminence of St Alban's Head, and thereafter, right round the south-western promontory of England, the cliff-bound coast, with its bays and inlets closely beset with hills, predominates over the low shore-line, exhibits a remarkable series of different forms, and provides the finest scenery of its kind in England. The shores of the Severn estuary are low, but the Welsh coast, sharing the general character of the land, is more or less elevated throughout, though none of the higher mountain-masses directly approaches the sea. Low shores correspond to the plains of Cheshire, Lancashire and the Solway, while the intervening coast is of no great elevation, as only the foothills of the Lake District approach it with a gradual slope.

+---------------------------+--------+------------+
| Rivers. | Length | Drainage |
| | Miles. | Area sq. m.|
+---------------------------+--------+------------+
| 1. North-east-- | | |
| Tweed[5] | 97 | 1870 |
| Tyne | 80 | 1130 |
| Wear | 60 | 458 |
| Tees | 85 | 708 |
| | | |
| 2. East-- | | |
| Humber system[6] | .. | 9293 |
| Witham | 80 | 1079 |
| Welland | 70 | 760 |
| Nene | 90 | 1077 |
| Ouse (Great) | 160 | 2607 |
| Yare | 60 | 880 |
| Stour (Suffolk-Essex) | 60 | 407 |
| Thames[7] | 209 | 5924 |
| | | |
| 3. South-- | | |
| Stour (Kent) | 40 | 370 |
| Rother | 32 | 312 |
| Arun | 43 | 370 |
| Avon (Hampshire) | 60 | 1132 |
| Exe | 55 | 584 |
| Tamar | 58 | 384 |
| | | |
| 4. Bristol Channel | | |
| (south-west)-- | | |
| Torridge | 45 | 336 |
| Taw | 48 | 455 |
| Parrett | 37 | 562 |
| Severn[8] [9] | 210 | 6850 |
| Usk[9] | 70 | 540 |
| | | |
| 5. North-west-- | | |
| (a) Cheshire-Lancashire--| | |
| Dee[9] | 70 | 813 |
| Mersey[10] | 70 | 1596 |
| Ribble | 65 | 585 |
| (b) Solway-- | | |
| Eden | 70 | 1300 |
+---------------------------+--------+------------+

A great extent of the English coast is constantly undergoing visible alteration, the sea in some instances receding from the land, and in others gaining upon it. The whole of Romney Marsh, in Kent and Sussex, formerly constituted an arm of the sea, where vessels rode in deep water, carrying produce to ports no longer in existence. Lydd and Romney, though maritime still in name, retaining some of the ancient privileges of the Cinque Ports, have become, through changes in the coast-line, small inland towns; and the same has been the fate of Rye, Winchelsea, and other places in that district. Again, the Isle of Thanet, in the north-eastern corner of Kent, has practically ceased to be an island. The wide estuary of the sea separating it from the mainland, through which ships sailed from the English Channel into the Thames, using it as the shortest route from the south to London, has entirely disappeared, leaving only a flat lowland traversed by branches of the river Stour to mark its former existence. The sea is encroaching over a considerable extent of coast-line on the North Sea as well as on the English Channel. Ravenspur, once an important town of Yorkshire, where Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV., landed in 1399, is now submerged; and Dunwich and other ancient ports in East Anglia have met with the same fate. The process of destruction, slow in some places, is so rapid in others that it can be traced even from month to month--the incessant work of the waves washing away the soft strata at the base of the cliffs and leaving the summits unsupported. Many cliffs of the east coast, from the Humber to the mouth of the Thames, are suffering from this destructive action, and instances also occur on the south coast. A royal commission on Coast Erosion was appointed to inquire into this question in 1906 (see _Report_, 1907 sqq.).

Except along the centre of the Irish Sea, at one point off the Tweed and one between Devon and Normandy, the depth of water between England and the nearest land nowhere exceeds 50 fathoms.

_Rivers._--The variations in length of the general slope of the land towards successive natural divisions of the coast may be illustrated by a comparative table of the mileage and drainage areas of the principal English rivers. The mileage does not take account of the lesser sinuosities of rivers.

With the exception of those in the Lake District (q.v.) the lakes of England are few and insignificant. A number of small meres occur in a defined area in Cheshire. (O. J. R. H.)

II. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

The object of this section is to give a physical description of England and Wales according to natural regions, which usually follow the geology of the country very closely; although the relationship of configuration and geology is not so simple or so clearly marked as in Scotland.

The land is highest in the west and north, where the rocks also are oldest, most disturbed, and hardest, and the land surface gradually sinks towards the east and south, where the rocks become successively less disturbed, more recent, and softer. The study of the scenery of England and Wales as a whole, or the study of orographical and geological maps of the country, allows a broad distinction to be drawn between the types of land-forms in the west and in the east. This distinction is essential, and applies to all the conditions of which geography takes account. The contrasted districts are separated by an intermediate area, which softens the transition between them, and may be described separately.

The Western Division is composed entirely of Archaean and Palaeozoic rocks, embracing the whole range from pre-Cambrian up to Carboniferous. The outcrops of these rocks succeed each other in order of age in roughly concentric belts, with the Archaean mass of the island of Anglesey as a centre, but the arrangement in detail is much disturbed and often very irregular. Contemporary igneous outbursts are extremely common in some of the ancient formations, and add, by their resistance to atmospheric erosion, to the extreme ruggedness of the scenery. The hills and uplands of ancient rocks do not form regular ranges, but rise like islands in four distinct groups from a plain of New Red Sandstone (Permian and Triassic), which separates them from each other and from the newer rocks of the Eastern Division. Each of the uplands is a centre for the dispersal of streams; but with only one prominent exception (the Humber) these reach the sea without crossing into the Eastern Division of the country.

The Eastern Division, lying to the east of the zone of New Red Sandstone, may be defined on the west by a slightly curved line drawn from the estuary of the Tees through Leicester and Stratford-on-Avon to the estuary of the Severn, and thence through Glastonbury to Sidmouth. It is built up of nearly uniform sheets of Mesozoic rock, the various beds of the Jurassic lying above the New Red Sandstone (Triassic), and dipping south-eastward under the successive beds of the Cretaceous system. In exactly the same way the whole of the south-east of the island appears to have been covered uniformly with gently dipping beds of Tertiary sands and clays, beneath which the Cretaceous strata dipped. At some period subsequent to this deposition there was a movement of elevation, which appears to have thrown the whole mass of rocks into a fold along an anticlinal axis running west and east, which was flanked to north and south by synclinal hollows. In these hollows the Tertiary rocks were protected from erosion, and remain to form the London and the Hampshire Basins respectively, while on the anticlinal axis the whole of the Tertiary and the upper Cretaceous strata have been dissected away, and a complex and beautiful configuration has been impressed on the district of the Weald. The general character of the landscape in the Eastern Division is a succession of steep escarpments formed by the edges of the outcropping beds of harder rock, and long gentle slopes or plains on the dip-slopes, or on the softer layers; clay and hard rock alternating throughout the series.

The contrast between the lower grounds of the Western and the Eastern Divisions is masked in many places by the general covering of the surface with glacial drift, which is usually a stiff clay composed on the whole of the detritus of the rocks upon which it rests, though containing fragments of rocks which have been transported from a considerable distance. This boulder clay covers almost all the low ground north of the Thames Basin, its southern margin fading away into washed sands and gravels.

The history of the origin of the land-forms of England, as far as they have been deduced from geological studies, is exceedingly complicated. The fact that every known geological formation (except the Miocene) is represented, proves of itself how long the history has been, and how multifarious the changes. It must suffice to say that the separation of Ireland from England was a comparatively recent episode, while the severance of the land-connexion between England and the continent by the formation of the Strait of Dover is still more recent and probably occurred with the human period.

The western division.

_Natural Divisions._--The four prominent groups of high land rising
from the plain of the Red Rocks are: (1) the _Lake District_, bounded
by the Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay and the valleys of the Eden and the
Lune; (2) the _Pennine Region_, which stretches from the Scottish
border to the centre of England, running south; (3) _Wales_, occupying
the peninsula between the Mersey and the Bristol Channel, and
extending beyond the political boundaries of the principality to
include Shropshire and Hereford; and (4) the peninsula of _Cornwall
and Devon_. They are all similar in the great features of their
land-forms, which have been impressed upon them by the prolonged
action of atmospheric denudation rather than by the original order and
arrangement of the rocks; but each group has its own geological
character, which has imparted something of a distinctive individuality
to the scenery. Taken as a whole, the Western Division depends for its
prosperity on mineral products and manufactures rather than on
farming; and the staple of the farmers is live-stock rather than
agriculture. The people of the more rugged and remoter groups of this
division are by race survivors of the early Celtic stock, which, being
driven by successive invaders from the open and fertile country of the
Eastern Division, found refuges in the less inviting but more easily
defended lands of the west. Even where, as in the Pennine region and
the Lake District, the people have been completely assimilated with
the Teutonic stock, they retain a typical character, marked by
independence of opinion approaching stubbornness, and by great
determination and enterprise.

_Lake District._--The Lake District occupies the counties of
Cumberland, Westmorland and North Lancashire. It forms a roughly
circular highland area, the drainage lines of which radiate outward
from the centre in a series of narrow valleys, the upper parts of
which cut deeply into the mountains, and the lower widen into the
surrounding plain. Sheets of standing water are still numerous, and
formerly almost every valley contained a single long narrow
lake-basin; but some of these have been subdivided, drained or filled
up by natural processes. The existing lakes include Windermere and
Coniston, draining south; Wastwater, draining south-west, Ennerdale
water, Buttermere and Crummock water (the two latter, originally one
lake, are now divided by a lateral delta), draining north-west;
Derwent water and Bassenthwaite water (which were probably originally
one lake), and Thirlmere, draining north; Ullswater and Haweswater,
draining north-east. There are, besides, numerous mountain tarns of
small size, most of them in hollows barred by the glacial drift which
covers a great part of the district. The central and most picturesque
part of the district is formed of great masses of volcanic ashes and
tuffs, with intrusions of basalts and granite, all of Ordovician
(Lower Silurian) age. Scafell and Scafell Pike (3162 and 3210 ft.), at
the head of Wastwater, and Helvellyn (3118), at the head of
Ullswater, are the loftiest amongst many summits the grandeur of whose
outlines is not to be estimated by their moderate height. Sedimentary
rocks of the same age form a belt to the north, and include Skiddaw
(3054 ft.); while to the south a belt of Silurian rocks, thickly
covered with boulder clay, forms the finely wooded valleys of Coniston
and Windermere. Round these central masses of early Palaeozoic rocks
there is a broken ring of Carboniferous Limestone, and several patches
of Coal Measures, while the New Red Sandstone appears as a boundary
belt outside the greater part of the district. Where the Coal Measures
reach the sea at Whitehaven, there are coal-mines, and the hematite of
the Carboniferous Limestones has given rise to the active ironworks of
Barrow-in-Furness, now the largest town in the district. Except in the
towns of the outer border, the Lake District is very thinly peopled;
and from the economic point of view, the remarkable beauty of its
scenery, attracting numerous residents and tourists, is the most
valuable of its resources. The very heavy rainfall of the district,
which is the wettest in England, has led to the utilization of
Thirlmere as a reservoir for the water supply of Manchester, over 80
m. distant.

_Pennine Region._--The Pennine Region, the centre of which forms the
so-called Pennine Chain, occupies the country from the Eden valley to
the North Sea in the north, and from the lower Tees, Yorkshire Ouse
and Trent, nearly to the Irish Sea, in the south. It includes the
whole of Northumberland and Durham, the West Riding of Yorkshire, most
of Lancashire and Derbyshire, the north of Staffordshire and the west
of Nottinghamshire. The region is entirely composed of Carboniferous
rocks, the system which transcends all others in the value of its
economic minerals. The coal and iron have made parts of the region the
busiest manufacturing districts, and the centres of densest
population, in the country, or even in the world. The whole region may
be looked upon as formed by an arch or anticline of Carboniferous
strata, the axis of which runs north and south; the centre has been
worn away by erosion, so that the Coal Measures have been removed, and
the underlying Millstone Grit and Carboniferous Limestone exposed to
the influences which form scenery. On both sides of the arch, east and
west, the Coal Measures remain intact, forming outcrops which
disappear towards the sea under the more recent strata of Permian or
Triassic age. The northern part of the western side of the anticline
is broken off by a great fault in the valley of the Eden, and the
scarp thus formed is rendered more abrupt by the presence of a sheet
of intrusive basalt. Seen from the valley, this straight line of lofty
heights, culminating in Crossfell, presents the nearest approach in
England to the appearance of a mountain range. In the north the
Pennine region is joined to the Southern Uplands of Scotland by the
Cheviot Hills, a mass of granite and Old Red Sandstone; and the
northern part is largely traversed by dykes of contemporary volcanic
or intrusive rock. The most striking of these dykes is the Great Whin
Sill, which crosses the country from a short distance south of Durham
almost to the source of the Tees, near Crossfell. The elevated land is
divided into three masses by depressions, which furnish ready means of
communication between east and west. The South Tyne and Irthing
valleys cut off the Cheviots on the north from the Crossfell section,
which is also marked off on the south by the valleys of the Aire and
Ribble from the Kinder Scout or Peak section. The numerous streams of
the region carry off the rainfall down long valleys or dales to the
east and the south, and by shorter and steeper valleys to the west.
The dales are separated from each other by high uplands, which for the
most part are heathery moorland or, at best, hill pastures. The
agriculture of the region is confined to the bottoms of the dales, and
is of small importance. Crossfell and the neighbouring hills are
formed from masses of Carboniferous Limestone, which received its
popular name of Mountain Limestone from this fact. Farther south, such
summits as High Seat, Whernside, Bow Fell, Penyghent and many others,
all over 2000 ft. in height, are capped by portions of the grits and
sandstones, which rest upon the limestone. The belt of Millstone Grit
south of the Aire, lying between the great coal-fields of the West
Riding and Lancashire, has a lower elevation, and forms grassy uplands
and dales; but farther south, the finest scenery of the whole region
occurs in the limestones of Derbyshire, in which the range terminates.
The rugged beauty of the south-running valleys, and especially of
Dovedale, is enhanced by the rich woods which still clothe the slopes.
There are remarkable features underground as well as on the surface,
the caverns and subterranean streams of Yorkshire and Derbyshire being
amongst the deepest that have yet been explored. Compared with the
rugged and picturesque scenery of the Lower Carboniferous rocks, that
of the Coal Measures is, as a rule, featureless and monotonous. The
coal-fields on the eastern side, from the Tyne nearly to the Trent,
are sharply marked off on the east by the outcrop of Permian dolomite
or Magnesian limestone, which forms a low terrace dipping towards the
east under more recent rocks, and in many places giving rise to an
escarpment facing westward towards the gentle slope of the Pennine
dales. To the west and south the Coal Measures dip gently under the
New Red Sandstone, to reappear at several points through the Triassic
plain. The clear water of the upland becks and the plentiful supply of
water-power led to the founding of small paper-mills in remote valleys
before the days of steam, and some of these primitive establishments
still exist. The prosperity and great population of the Pennine
region date from the discovery that pit-coal could smelt iron as well
as charcoal; and this source of power once discovered, the people bred
in the dales developed a remarkable genius for mechanical invention
and commercial enterprise, which revolutionized the economic life of
the world and changed England from an agricultural to an industrial
country. The staple industry of the district in ancient times was
sheep-rearing, and the villages in nearly all the dales carried on a
small manufacture of woollen cloth. The introduction of cotton caused
the woollen manufactures on the western side to be superseded by the
working up of the imported raw material; but woollen manufactures,
themselves carried on now almost entirely with imported raw material,
have continued to employ the energies of the inhabitants of the east.
Some quiet market-towns, such as Skipton and Keighley, remain, but
most of them have developed by manufactures into great centres of
population, lying, as a rule, at the junction of thickly peopled
valleys, and separated from one another by the empty uplands. Such are
Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Huddersfield and Halifax on the great and
densely peopled West Riding coal-field, which lies on the eastern
slope of the Pennines. The iron ores of the Coal Measures have given
rise to great manufactures of steel, from cutlery to machinery and
armour-plates. High on the barren crest of the Pennines, where the
rocks yield no mineral wealth, except it be medicinal waters,
Harrogate, Buxton and Matlock are types of health resorts, prosperous
from their pure air and fine scenery. Across the moors, on the western
side of the anticline, the vast and dense population of the Lancashire
coal-field is crowded in the manufacturing towns surrounding the great
commercial centre, Manchester, which itself stands on the edge of the
Triassic plain. Ashton, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton and Wigan form
a nearly confluent semicircle of great towns, their prosperity founded
on the underlying coal and iron, maintained by imported cotton. The
Lancashire coal-field, and the portion of the bounding plain between
it and the seaport of Liverpool, contain a population greater than
that borne by any equal area in the country, the county of London and
its surroundings not excepted. In the south-west of the Pennine region
the coal-field of North Staffordshire supports the group of small but
active towns known collectively from the staple of their trade as "The
Potteries." On the north-east the great coal-field of Northumberland
and Durham, traversed midway by the Tyne, supports the manufactures of
Newcastle and its satellite towns, and leaves a great surplus for
export from the Tyne ports.

_Wales._--The low island of Anglesey, which is built up of the
fundamental Archaean rocks, is important as a link in the main line of
communication with Ireland, because it is separated from the mainland
by a channel narrow enough to be bridged, and lies not far out of the
straight line joining London and Dublin. The mainland of Wales rises
into three main highlands, the mountain groups of North, Mid and South
Wales, connected together by land over 1000 ft. in elevation in most
places, but separated by valleys affording easy highways. The streams
of the southern and western slopes are short and many, flowing
directly to the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea; but the no less
numerous streams of the eastern slopes gather themselves into three
river systems, and reach the sea as the Dee, the Severn and the Wye.
The mountain group of _North Wales_ is the largest and loftiest; its
scenery resembles that of the Scottish Highlands because of the
juxtaposition of ancient Palaeozoic rocks--Cambrian and Ordovician,
often altered into slate--and contemporaneous volcanic outbursts and
igneous intrusions. Here rises the peak of Snowdon (3560 ft.), the
culminating point of South Britain, and near it half a dozen summits
exceed 3000 ft., while Cader Idris, farther south, though slightly
lower, presents a singularly imposing outline. The mild winter climate
has fringed the coast with seaside resorts, the rugged heights attract
tourists in summer, and the vast masses of slate have given rise to
the largest slate quarries in the world. The heavy rainfall of the
upper valleys unfits them for agriculture, and the farms are poor.
There are several lakes: that of Bala being the largest, except the
old lake of Vyrnwy, reconstituted artificially to store the rainfall
for the water-supply of Liverpool, 68 m. distant. The Vyrnwy is
tributary to the Severn; but north of it the streams gather into the
Dee, and flow eventually northward. _Mid Wales_ is built up, for the
most part, of Silurian or Ordovician rocks, practically free from
igneous intrusions except in the south-west. There the resistance of a
series of igneous dykes gives prominence to the Pembroke peninsula, in
which the fine fjord-like harbour of Milford Haven lies far out
towards the Atlantic. The coast north of Pembroke and Merioneth has
been worked into the grand sweep of Cardigan Bay, its surface carved
into gently rounded hills, green with rich grass, which sweep downward
into wide rounded valleys. Plinlimmon (2468 ft.) is the highest of the
hills, and forms a sort of hydrographic centre for the group, as from
its eastern base the Severn and the Wye take their rise--the former
describing a wide curve to east and south, the latter forming a chord
to the arc in its southward course. Mid Wales is mainly a pastoral
country, and very thinly peopled. A group of artificial lakes, one of
them exceeded in area only by Windermere, has been formed in the
valley of the Elan, a tributary of the Wye, for the supply of water to
Birmingham. The group of heights of _South Wales_, running on the
whole from west to east, marks the outcrops of the Old Red Sandstone
and Carboniferous strata which lie within a vast syncline of the
Silurian rocks. The Brecon Beacons of Old Red Sandstone are the
highest (2907 ft.), but the Black Mountain bears a number of
picturesque summits carved out of Millstone Grit and Carboniferous
Limestone, which rise frequently over 2000 ft. Throughout Hereford,
and in part of Monmouthshire, the Old Red Sandstone sinks to a great
undulating plain, traversed by the exquisite windings of the Wye, and
forming some of the richest pasture and fruit lands of England. This
plain formed an easy passage from south to north, and since the time
of the Romans was a strategical line of the greatest importance, a
fact which has left its traces on the present distribution of towns.
Around the western and northern edge of the Old Red Sandstone plain
the underlying Silurian rocks (and even the Cambrian and Archaean in
places) have been bent up so that their edges form hills of singular
abruptness and beauty. Of these are the Malvern Hills, east of
Hereford, and in particular the hills of Shropshire. Wenlock Edge,
running from south-west to north-east, is an escarpment of Silurian
limestone, while the broad upland of Long Mynd, nearly parallel to it
on the north, is a mass of Archaean rock. The Wrekin, the Caradoc and
Cardington Hills are isolated outbursts of pre-Cambrian volcanic
rocks. The outer rim of the Welsh area contains a broken series of
coal-fields, where patches of Carboniferous strata come to the surface
on the edge of the New Red Sandstone plain. Such are the coal-fields
of Flint in the north, the Forest of Wyre and the Forest of Dean,
close to the Severn, on the east. The great coal-field on the south is
a perfect example of a synclinal basin, the Millstone Grit and
Carboniferous Limestone which underlie the Coal Measures appearing all
round the margin. This coal-field occupies practically the whole of
Glamorgan and part of Monmouth, and its surface slopes from the Black
Mountain and Brecon Beacons to the sea as a gently inclined plateau,
scored by deep valleys draining south. Each chief valley has a railway
connecting a string of mining villages, and converging seaward to the
busy ports of Newport, Cardiff and Barry (a town created on a sandy
island by the excavation of a great dock to form an outlet for the
mines). In the north of the field, where the limestone crops out and
supplies the necessary flux, Merthyr Tydfil has become great through
iron-smelting; and in the west Swansea is the chief centre in the
world for copper and tin smelting. The unity and ruggedness of the
highlands of Wales have proved sufficient to isolate the people from
those of the rest of South Britain, and to preserve a purely Celtic
race, still very largely of Celtic speech.

_Cornwall and Devon._--The peninsula of Cornwall and Devon may be
looked upon as formed from a synclinal trough of Devonian rocks, which
appear as plateaus on the north and south, while the centre is
occupied by Lower Carboniferous strata at a lower level. The northern
coast, bordering the Bristol Channel, is steep, with picturesque
cliffs and deep bays or short valleys running into the high land, each
occupied by a little seaside town or village. The plateau culminates
in the barren heathy upland of Exmoor, which slopes gently southward
from a general elevation of 1600 ft., and is almost without
inhabitants. The Carboniferous rocks of the centre form a soil which
produces rich pasture under the heavy rainfall and remarkably mild and
equable temperature, forming a great cattle-raising district. The
Devonian strata on the south do not form such lofty elevations as
those on the north, and are in consequence, like the plain of
Hereford, very fertile and peculiarly adapted for fruit-growing and
cider-making. The remarkable features of the scenery of South Devon
and Cornwall are due to a narrow band of Archaean rock which appears
in the south of the peninsulas terminating in Lizard Head and Start
Point, and to huge masses of granite and other eruptive rocks which
form a series of great bosses and dykes. The largest granite boss
gives relief to the wild upland of Dartmoor, culminating in High
Willhays and Yes Tor. The clay resulting from the weathering of the
Dartmoor granite has formed marshes and peat bogs, and the desolation
of the district has been emphasized by the establishment in its midst
of a great convict prison, and in its northern portion of a range for
artillery practice. The Tamar flows from north to south on the
Devonian plain, which lies between Dartmoor on the east and the
similar granitic boss of Bodmin Moor (where Brown Willy rises to 1345
ft.) on the west. There are several smaller granite bosses, of which
the mass of Land's End is the most important. Most of the Lizard
peninsula, the only part of England stretching south of 50 deg. N., is
a mass of serpentine. The great variety of the rocks which meet the
sea along the south of Cornwall and Devon has led to the formation of
a singularly picturesque coast--the headlands being carved from the
hardest igneous rocks, the bays cut back in the softer Devonian
strata. The fjord-like inlets of Falmouth, Plymouth and Dartmouth are
splendid natural harbours, which would have developed great commercial
ports but for their remoteness from the centres of commerce and
manufactures. China clay from the decomposing granites; tin and copper
ore, once abounding at the contacts between the granite and the rocks
it pierced, were the former staples of wealth, and the mining largely
accounts for the exceptional density of population in Cornwall.
Fishing has always been important, the numerous good harbours giving
security to fishing-boats; and the fact that this coast is the mildest
and almost the sunniest, though by no means the driest, part of Great
Britain has led to the establishment of many health resorts, of
which Torquay is the chief. The old Cornish language of the Celtic
stock became extinct only in the 18th century, and the Cornish
character remains as a heritage of the time when the land had leisure
to mould the life and the habits of the man. Projecting farthest of
all England into the Atlantic, it is not surprising that the West
country has supplied a large proportion of the great naval commanders
in British history, and of the crews of the navy.

The midland plain.

Between the separate uplands there extends a plain of Permian and
Triassic rocks, which may conveniently be considered as an
intermediate zone between the two main divisions. To the eye it forms
an almost continuous plain with the belt of Lias clays, which is the
outer border of the Eastern Division; for although a low escarpment
marks the line of junction, and seems to influence the direction of
the main rivers, there is only one plain so far as regards free
movement over its surface and the construction of canals, roads and
railways. The plain usually forms a distinct border along the landward
margins of the uplands of more ancient rock, though to the east of the
Cornwall-Devon peninsula it is not very clear, and its continuity in
other places is broken by inliers of the more ancient rocks, which
everywhere underlie it. One such outcrop of Carboniferous Limestone in
the south forms the Mendip Hills; another of the Coal Measures
increases the importance of Bristol, where it stands at the head of
navigation on the southern Avon. In the north-west a tongue of the Red
rocks forms the Eden valley, separating the Lake District from the
Pennine Chain, with Carlisle as its central town. Farther south, these
rocks form the low coastal belt of Lancashire, edged with the longest
stretches of blown sand in England, and dotted here and there with
pleasure towns, like Blackpool and Southport. The plain sweeps round
south of the Lancashire coal-field, forms the valley of the Mersey
from Stockport to the sea, and farther south in Cheshire the
salt-bearing beds of the Keuper marls give rise to a characteristic
industry. The plain extends through Staffordshire and Worcester,
forming the lower valley of the Severn. The greater part of
Manchester, all Liverpool and Birkenhead, and innumerable busy towns
of medium size, which in other parts of England would rank as great
centres of population, stand on this soil. Its flat surface and low
level facilitate the construction of railways and canals, which form a
closer network over it than in other parts of the country. The great
junction of Crewe, where railways from south-east, south-west, east,
west and north converge, is thus explained. South of the Pennines, the
Red rocks extend eastward in a great sweep through the south of
Derbyshire, Warwick, the west of Leicestershire, and the east of
Nottingham, their margin being approximately marked by the Avon,
flowing south-west, and the Soar and Trent, flowing north-east. South
and east of these streams the very similar country is on the Lias
clay. Several small coal-fields rise through the Red rocks--the
largest, between Stafford and Birmingham, forms the famous "Black
Country," with Wolverhampton and Dudley as centres, where the
manufacture of iron has preserved a historic continuity, for the great
Forest of Arden supplied charcoal until the new fuel from the pits
took its place. This coal-field, ministering to the multifarious metal
manufactures of Birmingham, constitutes the centre of the Midlands.
Smaller patches of the Coal Measures appear near Tamworth and Burton,
while deep shafts have been sunk in many places through the overlying
Triassic strata to the coal below, thus extending the mining and
manufacturing area beyond the actual outcrop of the Coal Measures. A
few small outcrops occur where still more ancient strata have been
raised to the surface, as, for instance, in Charnwood Forest, where
the Archaean rocks, with intrusions of granite, create a patch of
highland scenery in the very heart of the English plain; and in the
Lickey Hills, near Birmingham, where the prominent features are due to
volcanic rocks of very ancient date. The "Waterstones," or Lower
Keuper Sandstones,--forming gentle elevations above the softer marls,
and usually charged with an abundant supply of water, which can be
reached by wells,--form the site of many towns, such as Birmingham,
Warwick and Lichfield, and of very numerous villages. The plain as a
whole is fertile and undulating, rich in woods and richer in pasture:
the very heart of rural England. Cattle-grazing is the chief farm
industry in the west, sheep and horse-rearing in the east; the
prevalence of the prefix "Market" in the names of the rural towns is
noticeable in this respect. The manufacture of woollen and leather
goods is a natural result of the raising of live stock; Leicester,
Coventry and Nottingham are manufacturing towns of the region. The
historic castles, the sites of ancient battles, and the innumerable
mansions of the wealthy, combine to give to central England a certain
aesthetic interest which the more purely manufacturing districts of
the west and north fail to inspire. The midland plain curves northward
between the outcrop of the Dolomite on the west and the Oolitic
heights on the east. It sinks lowest where the estuary of the Humber
gathers in its main tributaries, and the greater part of the surface
is covered with recent alluvial deposits. The Trent runs north in the
southern half of this plain, the Ouse runs south through the northern
half, which is known as the Vale of York, lying low between the
Pennine heights on the west and the Yorkshire moors on the east. Where
the plain reaches the sea, the soft rocks are cut back into the
estuary of the Tees, and there Middlesbrough stands at the base of the
Moors. The quiet beauty of the rural country in the south, where the
barren Bunter pebble-beds have never invited agriculture, and where
considerable vestiges of the old woodland still remain in and near
Sherwood Forest, has attracted so many seats of the landed aristocracy
as to earn for that part the familiar name of "the Dukeries." The
central position of York in the north made it the capital of Roman
Britain in ancient times, and an important railway junction in our
own.

The eastern division.