Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/229

Rh PHYSIC A f, FEATURES.] ENGLAND 217 navigation, has suffered much since the introduction of railways ; still they continue of great benefit fur cheap, if slow, communication. Of the highest commercial value still are the Thames, the Humber, the Mersey, and the Severn, but these four principal English rivers derive their importance mainly, if not entirely, from being arms of the sea. limate Affected by its insular position, with no part of its land more than a hundred miles from the sea, and perhaps equally as much though modern scientific investigation has not quite set this matter at rest by that most remark able current of the ocean known as the Gulf Stream, the climate of England is much milder than that of any other country in the same latitude on the continent of Europe, or in America. The mean annual temperature of England in recent years has been 49 7, that of summer averaging GO S, and that of winter 39 5. The principal cause of this very high as well as very equable temperature, contrasting to a marvellous extent with that of other countries in like latitude, such as, for example, Northern Canada, is generally ascribed, with but few dissenting opinions, to the constant flow of heated water bathing the western shore of the island. The vast current of the Gulf Stream, originating within the land-locked area of the Gulf of Mexico, where the tropical sun is heating the waters as in an immense cauldron, after running for some distance eastward into the open ocean, then turns direct to the north-east, so that the first land it meets with, and which feels its effect, is the shores of Ireland and England. The actual amount of heat so given to England must be enormous, since the temperature of the Gulf Stream is at least 8 above that of the surrounding waters of the North Atlantic. A recent scientific traveller, making experiments in a voyage from England to the United States, found that, while in the Gulf Stream the water was at sunrise always not less than 4 above the temperature of the air, by a sudden change, on quitting the north-easterly current, the temperature of the waves was found to be, on the average, 4 below that of the air. England is thus in the position of a great hot-house, kept above the surrounding temperature by never ending cur rents of warm air. linfull. But it is not warmth alone, but moisture, which the Gulf Stream gives to England. Here, as in the greater part of western Europe, the prevailing winds are from the south west, bringing with them the warm, moist air of the great Atlantic current, and discharging it in rainfall all over the land. This is strikingly shown in the statistics of rainfall in England, which prove it far higher in the western than in the eastern counties, and greatest in those parts where the moist Atlantic air-currents are unimpeded by mountain ranges. In the extreme south-west, in Cornwall, from 22 to 47 inches of rain fall every year, and the average may be taken at 36 inches ; while in the adjoining county, Devonshire, a little further inland, the average is but 32 inches. However, the high range of the Dartmoor hills causes a much greater variation in the amount of rainfall in the latter county than in the former ; for while no less than 52-33 inches fall on the summit of Dartmoor, only 19 87 inches fall at Sidmouth, lying sheltered to the west. The same is the case further east, in Somersetshire, where 36 76 inches of rain fall annually at West Harptree, facing the Bristol Channel, while only 19 inches fall at Taunton, shut off from the moist gulf current by the Exmoor range. So it is everywhere, all over England, with the general result that in the west, and more especially the southern parts of it, there is more rainfall than in the east, the variations also being much less in the latter districts. In Dorsetshire the annual rainfall varies from 18 45 inches at Abbotsbury to 29-05 inches at Blandford, and in Wiltshire from 18-14 iachesat Chippenham to 25 20 inches at Salisbury. Further eastward, in Hampshire, the variation is from 16 51 inches at Aldershot to 26 -90 inches in Woolmer Forest ; while in Sussex, nearer the sea, it is from 18&quot;18 inches at Hastings to 32 79 inches at Chichester. In the metropolitan counties of Middlesex, Kent, and Surrey the variations are no greater than from 16 &quot;22 inches at Hampstead to 28 90 inches at Cranbrook. The highest rainfall anywhere yet ascertained in England and Wales was at Beddgelert, Carnarvonshire, where it reached the enormous amount off 101 58 inches in the year 1870. Lying on the western slope of the highest summit of the Snowdon range, close to the Atlantic, the little village received a surcharge of the moist air of the Gulf Stream. Co-operating in their influence, climate and geological Soil and formation have given England a soil moderately fertile, yet adapted on the whole more for pasturage than for agricul ture. In Wales, and other parts of northern and western England through which stretch the principal mountain ranges, the Silurian rocks, covered on their upper surface chiefly with hard gritty and slaty material, difficult to decom pose by atmospheric action, form but little soil, so that the ground must to a large extent remain untilled, leaving it at the same time well adapted for pastoral purposes. Again, through the inland counties, from Northumberland to Derbyshire, there runs another long tract of hilly country, composed of carboniferous rocks, so constituted as to be unfit for ordinary agriculture, except where intersected by stream-fed valleys. Further east come the bleak moorlands of Yorkshire, which, barren in their nature, are being surrounded and intersected by some of the most fertile tracts in England, extremely well cultivated and thickly inhabited. On the whole, it may be said that while much of the high-lying ground is fit only for pastoral purposes, the low lands are more or less fertile, the extreme moisture of the air having caused the complete disintegration even. of such old geological formations as those of the Eed Sandstone. It is a somewhat singular fact that nearly all the districts of England, where fruit-trees are grown in large quantities, lie chiefly upon red rocks, sometimes of the Old and sometimes of the New Sandstone strata. There cannot be a doubt, however, that, on the whole, the soil of England would be very barren, repaying poorly the labours of the husbandman, but for the vast cover of warmth and moisture received from the waters of the Atlantic, which favours it as the sun of more southerly regions, and makes its fauna and flora equal to those of any country in the temperate zone. The physical aspect of England has had little to do with its civil divisions, which are somewhat arbitrary, and remote in their origin. The division of the country into tythings, hundreds, and counties is generally attributed, on the authority of Ingulphus, to King Alfred, but it is more probable that he only systematized what already existed, in the general survey which was taken during his reign. English county names occur in history before the extinction of the Heptarchy, some of the smaller kingdoms of which, as Kent, Sussex, and Essex, became counties under the new political settlement. At the same time, the kingdom of Wessex was composed of counties with still existing names, Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire. Under King Alfred s re-arrangement, virtually that of the present day, as far as the larger divisions are concerned, physical boundaries were frequently disregarded, which had its cause probably in the existence of the older political borders, such as those existing during the heptarchy. On the east coast of England, the divisions generally conform with the physical features : the Tyne, Tees, Humber, Wash, Yare, Stour, and Thames separate the counties of Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk. Suffolk, Essex, and Kent. The same, however, VIII. 28 divisioMI