Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/228

Rh 216 ENGLAND [PHYSICAL FEATURES. of which is to be found only in the tropical regions. But if this much is ascertained, by the evidence of organic remains found in abundance in Kent and Sussex, there is, and in all likelihood ever will be, complete ignorance as to the shape and extent of the continent which this great river drained, and of which England then formed a part. Professor Ramsay surmises that &quot; in size it must have been far larger than Europe, and probably as large as Asia, or the great continents of North or South America.&quot; Altera- The formations of the Tertiary or Eocene period lie all tions of over England, the most recent being represented by the coast alluvial beds of Norfolk, Suffolk, and South Hampshire, and Uue&amp;lt; of the basin of the Thames. The whole of the east coast of England, and a great part of the south coast, not only bear the mark of the most recent geological changes that have taken place in this country, but are affected by a con tinuation of them to this day. A long extent of coast-line constantly undergoes alterations, in some instances the land gaining upon the sea, and in others, rather less numerous, the sea upon the land. The whole of Romney Marsh, in Kent, embracing upwards of 24,000 acres, formerly con stituted an arm of the sea, where vessels rode in deep water, carrying produce to ports which are no more in existence. Lydd, or, as it is called in old records, Hlyda, 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, Winchelsna, and other places in that district. Again, the Isle of Thanet, in the north eastern corner of Kent, has ceased to be an island at all but in name. The wide estuary of the sea, separating it from the mainland, and through which ships in compara tively recent times sailed from the English Channel into the Thames, using it as the shortest road from the south to London, has entirely disappeared, leaving barely a rill of water to mark its former existence. Encroach- If the sea retreated on some parts of the coast, it inents of encroached, and is encroaching, on the firm land over a the sea. considerable extent of other coast-line on the German Ocean, at well as on the English Channel. Ravenspur, once an im portant town of Yorkshire, where Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV., landed in 1399, is now submerged by the sea waves ; and Eccles-by-the-Sea, Cromer, and other ancient ports in Norfolk have met with the same fate. It is a com mon occurrence for the pedestrian who rambles over the Kentish hills bounding the narrower parts of the English Channel, to find that the path he is following suddenly comes to an end at the edge of the cliff, interrupted by a vertical precipice towards the shore. The process of destruction, slow in some places, is so rapid in others that it can be traced from month to month, and even from week to week the incessant roll of the tides washing away the soft Eocene strata forming the base of the cliffs, and leaving the summits to roll over into the sea. It is the same in Yorkshire as in Kent. Over a distance of thirty-six miles, between Bridlington and Kilnsea, says Professor Phillips, &quot; the materials which fall from the wasting cliff are sorted by the tide ; the whole shore is in motion ; every cliff is hastening to its fall ; the parishes are contracted, the churches wasted away.&quot; Many cliffs of the east coast, from the Humber to the mouth of the Thames, are suffering from this destructive action of the sea, in some places at an average rate of from 4 to 5 yards a year, or a quarter of a mile in a century. Moun- In conformity with the geological structure of England, tarns and fa mountains lie in the north and west, falling into undu- Se8 lating ground in the centre and towards the south, and leaving the eastern districts, bordered by the German Ocean, a uniform plain. The mountains of England may be looked upon as one principal chain, often interrupted, however, and with endless ramifications, stretching from the Scottish border, in Northumberland, down to the western end of Cornwall, jutting out there into the Atlantic. The chain, traced in this direction, commences with the Cheviot Hills, the highest summit of which is Cheviot Peak, in &quot;Northumberland, 2676 feet above the level of the sea. Stretching south-westward, the chain next merges into the mountain ranges of Cumberland and Westmoreland, comprising Skiddaw, 3022 feet, Helvellyn, 3118 feet, and Scawfell, 3208 feet above the level of the sea. Within these ranges lie the only notable lakes of England, the largest of which, however, Windermere, does not cover more than eight square miles. After sending out numerous branches eastwards into the county of York, the chain sinks to modest elevations in Lancashire and Cheshire, but rises again in Wales, where it attains its greatest height in the summit of Wyddva, the pinnacle of the Snowdon range, 3571 feet above the sea. Partly lost in the Bristol Channel, and partly ramifying through Gloucestershire, Wilts, and Somerset, the chain next rises into high table land in Devonshire Dartmoor Forest, averaging an eleva tion of 1500 feet above the sea-level, forming its most ele vated portion. The chain gradually declines from Dartmoor to the Land s End, and becomes also more con tracted in that direction. From the Dunkerry Beacon, on Exmoor, 1668 feet above the sea, the mountain range goes sinking on to Carnwarth, in Cornwall, 849 feet; to Cara Brea, 697 feet ; and, finally, to the famous headland of Boleriurn, the granite masses of which oppose the ever- surging waters of the Atlantic, but rise only about 60 feet above them. Essentially dependent on the configuration of the chain River of mountains traversing England is that of its rivers. As the mountainous regions are in the west, the principal rivers flow away from them, towards the east, with but few exceptions. Surrounded by the sea, and with a moist atmosphere, England has a comparatively large number of rivers, though none of them of great length, their course being in most instances the shortest allowed by the con figuration of the island. At the head of English rivers, with acknowledged supremacy over the rest, stands the Thames. It drains an area of G 160 square miles, exclusive of its lower estuary, calculated to embrace an additional drainage of about 4000 square miles. Next, in extent of area of drainage, come the Trent and Ouse, the joint waters of which form the Humber, carrying off the rain fall from 9550 square miles of land, or about one-sixth of the whole of England. The Witham, the Welland, the Nen and their tributaries, flowing into the old estuary of the Wash, drain together an area of 5850 square miles. In comparison with the drainage area of these rivers, run ning principally from east to west, that of currents fol lowing an opposite direction is small; but several of them are nevertheless of great commercial and industrial im portance. Foremost among these westerly-flowing rivers stands the Severn, the course of which is only a short distance from the head of the Thames, the watershed being formed here by the narrow Oolitic escarpment of the Cots wold hills. The Severn drains an area of 8580 square miles, being more than that of all the other westward- running rivers together. Next to it stand the ^Mersey, which, with its sea-estuary, drains 1750 square miles, the Avon, which drains 1210 square miles, and the Eden, which drains 995 square miles of land. In Camden s Britannia, published in 1605, there is a list enumerating 553 rivers and streams, with separate names, in England and Wales; but it cannot be said that there are, at the utmost, more than fifty rivers that can properly be described as navigable. The former importance of the rivers of England, connected with each other by a vast network of canals, for inland